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Telangana Chief Minister floors industrialists

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was a man on a mission when he met industrialists from the state to seek their views before formulating the state industrial policy. Quick-witted and at times acerbic while commenting on certain issues raised by the industry, the chief minister, with his plain-speak coupled with spot decisions, won over the audience by the time the interactive session ended.

At the outset of the meeting, KCR, as the chief minister is known, appealed to the gathering to set aside niceties and get on to the point, that set the tone for the marathon interaction that lasted over five hours on Tuesday.

“The Telangana government will formulate the country’s best industrial policy which would ensure complete support not only to existing industries and IT companies but also encourage honest investors to come forward to set up shop in the state,” he said, adding that he intended to come up with a new legislation to facilitate quick single window clearances that would “surpass even standards set up by Singapore.”

The main points raised by the industrialists included power supply, tax incentives and rationalisation of levies, and KCR sought to address these issues.

“I realise after listening to your viewpoints that one of the problems that industry faces in Telangana is higher taxes compared to neighbouring states. It is common sense that business will flock to states which offer lower tax rates, and hence, I am directing the officials concerned to immediately take up the issue and come up with tax rates which are not merely comparable with neighbouring states but are a notch lower,” KCR said, indicating that the tax concessions could be as much as 25 per cent lower than levied by other states, besides taking up the issue of tax incentives.

On the issue of power supply, the chief minister promised to make Telangana a power-surplus state by the third year of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government’s tenure. “We are in talks with Chhattisgarh for purchase of power but this may take a year or two because of logistic problems, but it will be done. I can assure you about that,” he said, adding that a new Telangana Electricity Regulatory Authority would also be established soon. Speaking extensively on “gross misuse” of land allotted for industrial purposes in united Andhra Pradesh, KCR cited several examples of such lands lying idle or licences even being sold.

“We are looking for genuine investors unlike earlier times when some of the people who were allotted lands were not industrialists in the true sense. They would take the licence and later sell it to others to make a quick buck,” he said, and cited the example of an investor who procured a licence for a power project about 20 years ago but is yet to ground the project. “He came to me for licence again but I flatly refused to oblige him,” the chief minister said.

Stating that the government had ordered a survey to ascertain availability of government land across Telangana, KCR said that as per data available, the state had about 3.5 million acres of land, some of which are unfit for cultivation. “Right now, we have 300,000 acres ready for industrial use, but there are another two million acres which can be used for industry but infrastructure needs to be developed for them to be ready,” he said.

Stating that his priority was to stabilise the existing industry in and around Hyderabad, KCR said this would be followed by expansion plans.

Combining caution with an appeal, the chief minister said: “When the industry expects something from the government, the government too expects something from it. My request to you is to make best use of allotted lands and ensure that not an inch of land is wasted. You may employ workers from outside for areas requiring high skills, but ensure other jobs go to locals. That’s my only request,” he said.