Governor gives credit to KCR for making drought-hit state into ‘Annapurna’

Hyderabad: Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan on Tuesday said Telangana once a worst drought-hit region, had become “Annapurna, rice bowl of the country” and gave full credit to K. Chandrashekar Rao government’s dedicated and determined efforts for the transformation.

Delivering the Republic Day speech at Public Gardens here, she also highlighted how Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Bharat Biotech International Limited plant in the city to review the development of indigenous Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin had given great impetus to speed up the process of vaccination.

“We started the year 2021 with lot of optimism as the vaccination for Covid-19 has been started and is being administered on priority basis,” she said.

The Governor exuded confidence that the “yagna” of progress and development would be taken forward by the state government. The newly-born state has become the ‘Telangana model’ for the rest of the country. The successful reconstruction and rebuilding of the state was possible because the responsibility of governing it was entrusted to a leader (Chandrashekar Rao) who led the movement for separate Telangana, she added.

“Translating the statehood movement leaders’ vision into reality, the living standards of the people in Telangana state have tremendously improved due to the creation of basic infrastructure facilities in all villages,” the Governor said.

Referring to various initiatives of the government to improve irrigation infrastructure including the world’s largest multi-staged Kaleswaram lift irrigation scheme, the Governor said, “Now paddy is cultivated in 1.04 crore acres as against 35 lakh acres at the time of formation of the state.”

On the government’s procurement policy, on which the Opposition sought to raise a political controversy accusing the government of not coming to the rescue of farmers, the Governor said the Food Corporation of India had procured 1.15 crore tonnes of paddy all over the country in the last Rabi season out of which Telangana state accounted for 64 lakh tonnes which is 55 per cent of the total procurement.

Apparently reinforcing the commitment recently given by the Chief Minister to state employees, Dr Soundararajan announced that the process of enhancing salaries to all the state employees besides increasing their age of superannuation “is in progress.” Pensioners too will get benefited, she said.

The Governor also assured that fresh recruitments would be taken up to fill the vacancies arising out of effecting promotions.