Centre hell-bent on privatising Singareni

Hyderabad: Industries and Information Technology Minister KT Rama Rao stressed the need to be cautious about the Centre's "Becho India" (sell India) scheme.

He said this while replying to the demands seeking grants for industries and commerce, Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, and Municipal Administration and Urban Development, in the State Assembly on Thursday.

The Minister alleged that the Centre was conspiring to privatise the profit-making Singareni Collieries on the lines of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP). Rama Rao said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had written a letter to the Centre to allocate four coal mines to the Singareni Collieries as it was been done in case of Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC).

"Because Singareni Collieries stands top in the country with a Plant Load Factor (PLF) and paying 18 to 20 per cent bonus to its employees, which is also the highest, the Centre is conspiring to deprive it of captive mines to let it go in the VSP way as part of its 'Becho India Scheme'," he alleged.

Accusing the Centre of creating hurdles in the path of State's development, the Minister said two opposition parties, the Congress and the BJP, instead of extending cooperation, have been making baseless accusations and trying to malign State's reputation.

Rama Rao said that the State government was trying to establish the world's biggest pharmaceutical cluster at Mucherla with the new technologies available with zero liquid discharge. However, the opposition was making baseless allegations against State government accusing it of acquiring land from the poor at Rs 10 lakh per acre and selling it at Rs 2 crore per acre and doing real estate.

He referred to how even the Invest India head, in a recent CII conference, stated that the TS-iPASS policy was an inspiration. The State has created 56 industrial parks, and now focusing on special food processing zones. Out of 91 places identified, 14 places have been taken up initially to establish the zones to bring value addition to the increasing agriculture produce in the State, he said.