HYDERABAD: IT Minister KT Rama Rao on Friday took serious exception to the statement of Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar that the Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) project for Hyderabad stood scrapped.
Rama Rao came down heavily on the Centre for claiming to have granted other projects that are on par to compensate for the ITIR project. They have cheated the people of the country yet again and it is in BJP’s DNA to lie about anything and MoS Chandrasekhar has effortlessly done it, he said.
Rama Rao accused the Modi government of scrapping the ITIR project because the TRS was politically opposing the BJP. “The Telangana IT sector lost a great opportunity to grow further with the scrapping of ITIR project,” he said, adding that there was no contr-ibution from the Centre in IT’s growth story in Hyderabad.
The Centre in 2008 had proposed the ITIR project for Hyderabad and approved it in 2013. However, the Modi government has proven to be a curse on Telangana as it she-lved the project just like some other projects and the promises made in AP Reorganisation Act, said Rama Rao.
He recalled that he and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao making multiple pleas to Modi and how other Union Ministers had remained callous. Rama Rao said he made multiple representations to the centre to announce any scheme that would boost Hyderabad IT sector, on the lines of the ITIR project. Not a single penny was sanctioned for Hyderabad’s IT sector, he added.
Modi should apologise: KTR
He demanded that the Modi government apologise to the youth of Telangana for failing them in delivering its promises and said that the BJP had no proper policy for skilling and job creation in the country. He demanded the PM explain the loss incurred to Hyderabad due to the scrapping of the ITIR project.
Rama Rao stated that it was not right on the part of the Union government to say that the ITIR was scrapped because the latter had sanctioned smart cities and industrial corridors to Telangana.
He ridiculed the BJP govern-ment for claiming to have scra-pped a project dedicated for IT sector development but compensate it by sanctioning non IT projects. Telangana did not benefit even from the schemes that the Centre claims to have extended, Rama Rao said.