Telangana industries get ahead despite covid shadow

HYDERABAD: The industries sector in Telangana performed better last fiscal with the TS-iPASS attracting a cumulative investment of Rs 2,14,951 crore and creating 15.6 lakh jobs, said the annual report on industries in Telangana released by Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Thursday.This was possible because the ease of doing business (EoDB) in Telangana was widely acknowledged and the State was ranked third in the EoDB rankings for 2019.

Moreover, the TSIIC developed 10 new industrial parks and allotted 810 acres of land to 453 industries with an expected investment of Rs 6,023 crore and potential employment of 7,623 persons. Invest Telangana, meanwhile, launched a new website in July, 2020, to attract investments.Despite Covid-19 throwing a spanner in the works, Telangana’s growth fell only marginally in 2020-21 by 1.26 per cent. It clocked a GSDP of Rs 9.78 lakh crore, but it did better than India’s projected GDP contraction at 8 per cent.

The share of Telangana’s economy in the National GDP has gone up to 5.0 per cent in 2020-21 from 4.74 per cent in 2019-20. In 2020-21, the State recorded a per-capita income of Rs 2,27,145, when compared to the national average of Rs 1,27,768. Pharma, aerospace, textiles, food processing and MSME sectors are doing better, the Minister said while releasing the report, recalling that Telangana’s RT-PCR test kits were among the first to be approved by the ICMR.

He outlined how Bharat Biotech stood tall by developing a vaccine against Covid-19 and recalled the State winning an award from the Ministry of Civil Aviation for its aerospace sector in 2020. The Minister urged the Centre to work with the State governments to support the MSMEs, which were badly-hit by the pandemic.

TASK MARKS SEVEN YEARS OF SERVICE
The Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK) celebrated its seventh anniversary on Thursday. On the occasion, CEO of TASK Srikanth Sinha thanked IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao and others for their vision and guidance. TASK is a non-profit organisation set up by the State government for bringing synergy among institutions of government, industry and academia