Rich State, Poor State

Telangana will celebrate June 2 as the Telangana Formation Day, while AP will observe it as Nava Nirmana Deeksha Day. It is time for rejoicing on one side of the divide and for the people on the other side, it is time to know if they have made any progress at all in the last four years or are still at the place where they were when the state was divided.

The perceptions of June 2 by Telangana an AP are as different as chalk is from cheese. For Telangana, it is getting freedom from "exploitation" of Andhra rule, and, for the people of Andhra, it is time for them to gird their loins for a renewed effort to build their state which is still in its infancy.

For one in Andhra, bifurcation meant losing Hyderabad, and, for one in Telangana, it is cordoning off Hyderabad from the rest of AP since it belongs to them. Putting the point in proper perspective, one Telangana activist said: "If Andhra had lost Hyderabad, then we have lost Vijayawada.

But we are still happy. Let them realise that they do not lose something which they do not own, in the first place." In fact, Hyderabad – the all-weather cash cow – has made all the difference for the two states.

When the state was united, the revenue from Hyderabad was for the entire state. Now, the entire revenue of Hyderabad goes to Telangana and not even a penny goes to AP.  That is why Andhras feel a surge of bile in their throat when finances of the two states are compared.

The year 2014 began with a big bang for Telangana, but for AP, it was like looking into grim future with a yawning revenue deficit of Rs 16,000 crore which it had acquired after bifurcation and a club-shaped strip of land without a head.

The 2014-15 budget for Telangana estimated revenue at Rs 80,090 crore, including state taxes and duties accounting for Rs 35,378 crore, non-tax revenue at Rs 32,324 crore and interest receipts at Rs 2,638 crore. The revenue budget projected a net surplus of Rs 5.52 crore.

Juxtaposed to this, AP began the year with a revenue deficit of Rs 6,044 crore. This figure was arrived at after adjusting promised Rs 14,500 crore from the Centre. Since it did not arrive, the deficit was in fact over Rs 20,000 crore.

Ever since, Telangana was on a gravy train. It never bothered even though Rs 80,000 crore Kaleshwaram Project has not been declared as a national project though a request has been made to the Centre.

But AP is struggling to complete Polavaram Project though it had been declared a national project. The Rs 58,000-crore project has run aground even though Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu sits with a baton and chases the officials.

The AP state claims to have done nearly 50 per cent work, and that in the absence of funds from the Centre, it cannot do anything. With AP's coffers looking like the udders of an emaciated cow, it is waiting for the elusive manna to arrive from Delhi unlike Telangana government which is working day and night to execute the Kaleshwaram, a very difficult and tricky project viewed from an engineering perspective.

On the political front, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has to reckon with only Congress and to make him happy all the time, it remains a divided house with too many leaders dreaming about becoming the Chief Minister when Congress wins the election, without bothering to address the question of how. But for Naidu, he has been forced to put up with Jaganmohan Reddy, who does not take even a single minute breather while calling him names.

Then Naidu’s once comrade-in-arms Pawan Kalyan, who acted as sort of a rain-maker for him in getting votes of kapus in 2014, is now behind the enemy lines, raring to charge into the Telugu Desam citadel to capture power. Finally, big daddy BJP is working round the clock in dreaming up schemes to discredit Naidu.

Though on the face of it, it appeared proper for Naidu to smoke the peace pipe with BJP ahead of 2014 elections and close ranks with Narendra Modi since the state needed badly Centre's support to be able to raise from the death bed and keep walking, yet, he waited too long, for four years, even though returns on his proximity with the Prime Minister remained either poor or nil.

As Naidu dithered on taking a calibrated approach and took a long time to finally come out of the NDA, the damage had already been done with his bitter enemy Jaganmohan Reddy wresting the initiative that Naidu had failed either in getting Special Category Status or Special Package which was billed as one that was even better but finally proved to be one that was all hat and no cattle.

As Rao is walking on the moon, trying to stitch together a national alliance of regional parties which often betrays his national ambitions, Naidu, who was his guru, is still figuring out how to emotionally charge the voters against the BJP so that they would vote for him in the next elections, while at the same time, insulating himself from the prospect of Pawan Kalyan and Jaganmohan Reddy throwing their oars in. And quiet flow Musi in Hyderabad, and Krishna in Vijayawada.