TRS demands Rs 4,50,000 Cr compensation for Telangana

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), in response to the letters by the Group of Ministers (GoM) on Telangana to eight political parties in the state seeking their views on 11 issues, has demanded a Rs 4.1 lakh crore compensation package for reconstruction of Telangana.

The party faxed its response to the GoM, signed by party president K Chandrasekhar Rao, on Sunday.

The TRS has argued that the “plunder and total diversion” of Telangana’s wealth amounts to 4.1 lakh crores. This is just the financial aspect. “In economic terms, loss of productivity of agriculture due to neglect of its irrigation sources is estimated at Rs 4,53,392 crore. To top it all, denial of public employment opportunities to at least 2.5 lakh of its youth, over two generations, has weakened its social fabric. The collective plunder of Telangana, in socio-economic terms, has indeed been horrendous,” says its reply to the GoM letters.

The TRS said all the 10 districts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Warangal, Khammam, Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar, Medak, Rangareddy and Hyderabad would constitute a robust Telangana state. As per the latest delimitation exercise in 2007, these 10 districts have been divided into 17 Parliamentary, and further, 119 assembly constituencies.

The TRS argued that the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh can conveniently function from a set of decent, dignified and spacious outfits located in close proximity of each other within the city of Hyderabad.

However, it didn’t mention the duration of sharing the capital with the residuary state.
The TRS has reiterated that overall policing of Telangana, including Hyderabad city, must remain with the new state.

It also wants one major irrigation project in Godavari and another in the Krishna basin to be taken up at the national level.

Railway lines sanctioned in the past must be completed expeditiously, as should be the case with the Indian Institute of Management, Indian Institute of Medical Sciences and a National Tribal University.

However, the TRS wants disputes on the Polavaram irrigation project, located in the Andhra area, to be sorted out first.

It also demands that physical work on Polavaram should commence only after environmental issues, including wildlife and R&R issues of tribals in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Telangana, are addressed in a humane manner. Additionally, the TRS wants the Singareni collieries to remain under the direct control of the Telangana government, and all the shares held in it by the Government of Andhra Pradesh transferred to Telangana.

Source: Deccan Herald & Namasthe Telangana