AP Govt, Please allot lands wisely

The Vellore Institute of technology (VIT) is all set for laying the foundation stone in Amaravati, the Green Field Capital City of Andhra Pradesh. The foundation stone for the campus might be laid at Inavolu on November 3, 2016.

It is good that Andhra government is promoting the education sector in Amaravati by allotting the lands. VIT is already a top class institution and allotting lands to it should be welcomed. As per few media outlets, Amity and SRM University are also interested in opening up campuses in the new Capital City.

Allotting lands to institutions should be done very cautious manner and with stringent rules so that the institutions with business in mind will be filtered out in the selection process. Instead of allotting lands to all whoever want to open a campus, Andhra government should welcome locally top institutions like GITAM etc to nationally top institutions like BITS etc and internationally top schools like Cambridge etc and allot the lands through stringent selection process. 

Chandrababu Naidu, during his tenure as CM of Undivided Andhra Pradesh, established top institutions like International Institute of Technology-Hyderabad, Indian School of Business, Nalsar University etc which changed the face of Hyderabad. All the three institutions are now instrumental in driving the start-up culture in Telangana. He should repeat that and try to establish reputed campuses in Amaravati. Let us hope that Chandrababu Naidu repeats it.

Telangana Today - Another 'Cheap' daily?

Just like Namasthe Telanagana newspaper, there is one more newspaper getting launched in English space. It is called 'Telangana Today'. Here is a sly tweet from its editor

Reforms like creation of smaller districts more effective than slogans like "I don't sleep & won't let you sleep" #Telangana @TelanganaCMO

— Srinivas Reddy K (@KSriniReddy) October 11, 2016

So, do we need to say more on what can be expected from the new Daily. It will be 'cheap' like Namasthe Telangana. The actual question is...will it succeed financially.

Andhra Pradesh leads EoDB rankings as on Oct 07

The latest exercise of EoDB rankings seems to be throwing many surprises. There are many states competing for the top rank this year. Most of the states crossed 75% mark in implementing business reforms. As the exercise is nearing the completion, it is going to be nail-biting competition for the top rank. As of today, Andhra Pradesh leads the rankings with 96.67% implementation. Telangana is in the second position with 95.77% implementation.

No money with GHMC & HMDA

There is news coming in various sections of media that once cash-rich GHMC and HMDA are now left with empty coffers. This is the reason, attributed by many analysts, behind the worst roads in Hyderabad. What is surprising is, GHMC and HMDA are left with empty coffers after TRS came to power. What happened suddenly to the cash inflows, that were huge before TRS came into power?

The actual reason is that the erstwhile government in undivided AP, especially from the time of YSR, largely dependent on the income that came from the auction of lands and regularisation schemes in Hyderabad. This income was the sole reason behind the surplus budgets of GHMC/HMDA. After Telangana is formed, the real estate market did not pick up as expected. Though there was some momentum in IT areas, the overall market in Hyderabad has not been satisfactory. Adding to it, the overall Real Estate business in the country has slowed down.

Apart from the above reasons, the wrong decisions of the TRS Government affected the coffers.  TRS took up ambitious projects like Double Bed Room houses for Poor which needs huge budgets allocations. Also, the government decisions to fund loss-making RTC with GHMC money affected the revenues.