Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized TELANGANA DISTRICTS’ CONCLAVE, a virtual conference on “Districts of Telangana: The New Growth Engines of Tomorrow”.
In her Inaugural Address, Sumita Dawra, Additional Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Govt. of India, said that Telangana is the one of youngest and fast growing state which has a good reputation in Ease of doing Business. She stated that Telangana is going to be the one of the first state to be integrated with National single window system which will make Ease of doing business more effective. She also mentioned that Telangana added 130 parks at GIS-enabled land bank system because of which investor sitting anywhere in the world can see these parks, industrial information system, logistics, plots that are available, etc.
She pointed that Production-Linked Incentives (PLI) that are introduced in 10 sectors by central government, can enhance the manufacturing capacity and exports under Atmanirbhart Bharat. She urged district administration to look at these sectors which suit their districts, and explore the benefits of this scheme. She also said that a lot of handholding and relation building is needed for bringing investments and Telangana is one of the best in this.
Speaking at the Inaugural Session, Dushyant Thakor, Vice President, Invest India, said Telangana government is very progressive and doing good in terms of EoDB and quality investments by focusing sector wise strategically. He also said that initiatives like Mission Bhagiratha and Irrigation projects are transforming the state structurally. He stated that there are 761 projects that are available from Telangana on India Investment Grid (IIG), an initiative of Government of India showcasing investment opportunities across states and sectors. Projects from Warangal urban, Karimnagar, Mahboobnagar are also listed on this platform. He also stated that there are 2187 registered start-ups from 21 districts of Telangana and it is interesting to note that numbers of female directors from Telangana are 1020 in these startups.
In his Welcome Address, Krishna Bodanapu, Chairman, CII Telangana and Managing Director & CEO, Cyient Ltd, said that this is an interesting time to reset and retain how we conduct business and rebalance urban rural mix. He also said that in that last quarter, we have seen rural India spending overtook urban. Therefore we need to look for the opportunity to rebalance the growth and focus on the next step on bringing growth by focussing on rural districts.
Rajender Reddy, Director – Logistics, Govt. of Telangana said that district level committee have been formed to figure out the products from districts and work on products which can be exported. He said that there is a lot of focus among consumers to buy local and Vocal for Local and Self Reliance are gaining momentum. He mentioned that One district One Product (ODOP) will help in preservation of local arts & crafts, manufactured products, transforming the products and resolve regional imbalances.
The conference was also addressed by V Rajanna, Past Chairman, CII Telangana & Sr Vice President, Global Head – Technology Business Unit, TCS, said that Telangana is one of the top state in IT sector with contribution to India’s total IT exports is around 10 per cent which is the second largest. He said that in the past few years, we have seen the growth in investment in other districts such as Warangal and Karimnagar. He opined that strategies need to be laid out that are sector specific, to push the Industry beyond Hyderabad.
Mahesh Desai, Chairman, EEPC & Mentor – CII Telangana MSME Panel & Managing Director, Meera & Ceiko Pumps Pvt Ltd in his address said that ODOP scheme will benefit the rural economy Crafts and certain manufactured products that are neglected because they are not commercially viable due to lack of market chain can be benefitted. He stated that enabling district and state level export committee will help promotion of exports which further enhance the state of exports and also share of engineering products in growth.
In his concluding remarks, Sameer Goel, Vice Chairman – CII Telangana & Managing Director, Coromandel International Ltd, said that Agriculture output in Telangana increased multifold and this is the sector in which the growth beyond Hyderabad is booming.