PNS | HYDERABAD
Telangana’s Minister of Industries, Commerce and Information Technology, KT Rama Rao, urged politicians to focus on economics rather than politics.“If only the rest of India can perform like Telangana and if only the rest of India can be led by a leader like KCR, USD 5 trillion will be a joke. We can reach Rs 15 trillion dollars,” he said.
He said it was unfortunate that politicians in India focused on politics and not on the economy.India is in permanent election mode and politicians are always focused on winning elections than in creating wealth, he said while addressing the NHRD’s ‘Decode The Future – The National Conference’ on Thursday.
“We are the world’s largest democracy and elections are held throughout the year and leaders are always bothered about politics,” he said.KT Rama Rao also underlined the need for ensuring an equitable distribution of wealth. India is the most populous country in the world but most of the nation’s wealth is owned by a few individuals, he said.
He said it is the primary responsibility of every government to ensure a fair distribution of wealth.”We need to think whether the leadership of our nation is giving us hopes of becoming a USD 25 trillion economy, and how the wealth can be distributed equally,” KTR said.
“We are a nation with the maximum number of poor on the planet. I am not preaching Communism but unless wealth is distributed equitably and unless the government takes care of the most vulnerable we will have civil strife,” he warned.
Referring to Prime Minister Modi’s statement that the freebie culture is bad for the country, KTR said the fact remains that India is still a third-world country.He said that India which recently surpassed China as the most populous state with a population of 1.4 billion has the biggest advantage both in terms of natural and human resources.
The BRS leader believes that the biggest challenge for a leader is not capital management but people management.He pointed out that the median age of 65 per cent of India’s think force is 35 years and the median age of 50 per cent of the think force is 28 years.
“We are the youngest nation on the planet but we are not using this asset effectively,” he said.Unfortunately, the youth are being trained and groomed to be job seekers and not job providers, he said.
Stating that statistics are sometimes misleading, he said while India is the fifth largest economy in terms of GDP, it ranks 142 with a per capita income of only USD 2,400.KTR said India and China had almost similar GDPs in the 1980s. Now, China is a USD 18 trillion dollar economy and India is still languishing at USD 3.4 trillion dollars. Similarly, Japan, despite its geographical and topographical challenges, is the third-largest economy in the world.
He said China managed its development goals and ensured that its natural and human resources were put to effective use. He said Japan could achieve amazing growth despite all adversities because of its people’s intellect.
Listing out the rapid strides made by Telangana during the last eight years, especially the growth in GSDP and per capita income, he said that if only the rest of India had performed at par with Telangana, the country would have already become a USD 4.25 trillion dollar economy.
KTR said that Telangana made good use of its natural and human resources and achieved 15 per cent CAGR. Telangana’s per capita income in 2014 was Rs 1.24 lakh and it has increased to Rs 2.75 lakh while the national average is Rs 1.49 lakh, he said.
He pointed out that in the last 8.5 years, Telangana issued nearly 22,000 clearances for industries through TS-IPASS and generated 21 lakh direct jobs.He also explained how Telangana is marching ahead with a fine balance of development and welfare schemes
