Centre should incentivise performing States like Telangana: KTR

Ensure we come back as a government in 2023 to continue the good work, Minister urges CII gathering

Industries and IT Minister K. T. Rama Rao on Tuesday reiterated the significance of the Centre providing incentives to performing States like Telangana for accelerated development of the country.

“Unless we play to our strengths and empower States... we would be doing a great disservice,” the Minister said, seeking to underscore how incentivising performing States and encouraging non-performing States was something fundamental given that India is a Union of States, a federal republic.

Mr. Rao, who was addressing a conference on “Beyond India@75” organised by CII Telangana as part of its annual session here, said the need was to go beyond slogans such as ‘Make in India’ and introspect on what ailed industrial growth in the country. “We need to ask questions on why is it easy to manufacture in China, import and still sell it cheaper?” he said.

He listed growth indices to highlight the progress achieved by Telangana and strengths of the State in Life Sciences, aerospace and defence manufacturing. The State was also transitioning into a knowledge-based economy and gearing to tap opportunities in emerging sectors such as electric mobility. “If only rest of India did as well as Telangana... we certainly would have reached the target of $5 trillion [economy] in 2022 itself,” the Minister said.

Starting his speech by pointing out that it was the last CII annual meeting he was addressing before elections, Mr. Rao appealed to the gathering to “vote me back to power, ensure we come back as a government in 2023 to continue the good work.” The Minister also cited major projects initiated by the State government and how it was on course to witness revolutions in agriculture, dairy, meat processing, aquaculture and oil palm.

While pursing progress in various spheres, the State had always prioritised employment generation over investments, Mr. Rao said. He also presented the Telangana State Industry awards.

Describing Telangana as a role model, CII Southern Region chairperson Suchitra Ella appealed to the Minister to set up a consultative forum to facilitate further interactions between the State government and industry. She said CII was working on measures to reduce the cost of doing business (CoDB), which included finance and capital cost, compliance costs and societal and governmental costs as a step towards helping States assess the reforms needed to bring in efficiency and lower costs.