Opinion: Does KCR have the quality of a leader to rule India?

"UTTIKEKkALENAMMA AAKASANIKI NICHHANA VESINDANTA"

· Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) is following the footsteps of Narendra Modi, with the former's policy leading to real estate to amass wealth at the cost of the environment and the latter's policy leading to "Privatize & Corporatize" to help friendly business houses;

· KCR claims Telangana "GUIDE" to nation and Narendra Modi also claims the same. You know river Musi passes through Hyderabad, the capital city of Telangana state. A recent TSPCB reports that it is a highly polluted river—a cesspool of poison—and using such water, food is produced and fed to Hyderabadis. Another recent report presents that under the beautification programme of drinking water reservoir, a STP with 5,000 litres capacity and also to treat several nearby villages wastewater 14 STPs are planned and the treated water will be dumped into drinking water reservoirs against the laws.

· KCR is worried about Polavaram backwaters that cause flooding in Telangana area once in a blue moon (may or may not occur) but is not worried about Hyderabad floods after every rain.

· KCR's government at state level has no respect for environment like Narendra Modi government at the Centre. Is this system a guide to nation building?

· KCR has no respect for the neighbouring state(s), residents of Hyderabad where one-third of the state's population live. Same is the case with Narendra Modi who has no respect for non-NDA/BJP states.

· KCR has no plan to execute irrigation projects and as a result, he is putting a huge burden on the exchequer and future governments. For example, Kaleswaram & Palamore-Ranga Reddy lift irrigation systems. Kaleswaram was built with nearly Rs. 1 lakh crores loan money, though Telangana is a surplus state, for which the future governments have to pay more than Rs. 1.5 lakh crores—around Rs. 10,000 crores have to be paid each year plus to pump water requires 8,082 MW at a cost of more than Rs. 4,000 crores per year, that is, more than Rs. 5,000 crores have to be spent per year.

· KCR is boasting of providing free power to agriculture motors for 24 hours (the fact is Dr. YSR introduced this scheme in 2004 for nine hours). Nobody knows how much is going as pilferage/losses. In AP, for nine hours of free power, the losses are 30%. This was revealed from the metering. The minister concerned can try to put meters to pumps in his district as a trial to check pilferage/losses, but no such attempt was made. However, unlike in the case of Kaleswaram, the infrastructure was created by farmers by themselves.

· KCR has not given statistics on the area irrigated by tanks, under wells/bore wells, check dams, Kaleswaram. This data provides the effectiveness of Kaleswaram. CWC pointed out that water can be stored in Godavari instead of wasting money and land for building tanks. In fact, the purposes of these tanks are to serve the real estate ventures.

· Do these qualify KCR as a Leader to rule the Nation? The answer is a "BIG NO."

1. Does the word "Bharat Rashtra Samithi" have any meaning?: In this word, three sub-words are present without any cohesiveness or continuity in meaning. Bharat represents the nation, India; Rashtra represents the state in Bharat, Telangana state; Samithi represents part of a state.

2. A leader with more than 40 years in politics who says there was no growth in India during the past 75 years is unfit to lead India: We have seen KCR make statements like after Independence, in the last 75 years, past governments have made no development in India. In fact, this applies to Telangana state, too. Let us see one sector, namely the power sector. India started with "one" MW and on 31 August 2022 [Central Electricity Authority] reached 4,05,773 MW to meet the growing population needs from 30 crore to 145 crore. Same is the case with all such public utility sectors. The country with a begging bowl reached to exporting level. Now in Telangana state people are living in miserable atmosphere with the leader living in his farm house.

3. A leader with real estate interest is unfit to lead India: Under Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao's rule, all roads are leading to real estate ventures and which is making the city unhygienic (butchering greenery, encroaching on water bodies/nalas/rainwater drains and thus causing flooding even with little rains, traffic problems have become routine, illegal activities in residential zones, etc.). A few people are minting thousands and lakhs of crores, like in the Narendra Modi government, at the cost of more than a crore population in Hyderabad.

4. A leader who has no respect for environment is not fit to lead India: We have seen that KCR has no respect for the environment from the day he took power in the new state. He always looks at how best the projects serve for himself. The latest issue relates to Yadadri power plant. Four hundred acres were set apart for an ash pond within the project site close to the Krishna river. The project is close to Tungapahad vagu and the Musi river; leaving aside the experience with the thermal power plant ash pond and plant polluting villages and the Godavari river. In fact, in one of the task force legal hearings (I was a member of the committee) a legal notice was issued to the chief of the project. On this, the Centre responded positively. More than 2,000 acres of forest land falls under Veerapalem Reserve Forest. Here let me give an example: For a thermal power plant, 1,000 acres were allotted by the government saying it is dry area (something fishy happened). Local environmental groups informed our group in Hyderabad that it is a mangrove forest. We filed a PIL (I signed on behalf the group) in APHC (Hyderabad). The court directed the official concerned to visit the site and report back directly to the court. Even before it reached the court, the government cancelled the project at that site and allocated land at Krishnapattinam. Now it is fully operative. Both the state and the Centre colluded in granting EC to Yadadri power plant in violation of environmental rules/Acts while selecting the site. This is clearly evident from NGT observations; "In a strongly worded order, the NGT said the government of India and the state government in future will have to avoid conversion of forest land for non-forest purposes, especially for projects like thermal and atomic power plants and red category industries which are likely to cause high levels of pollution and also affect the forest cover." Are MoEF&CC and TSPCB not aware of these rules? Have they not obeyed the orders from above? Now with NGT, the power minister is saying somebody planned to sabotage the project to stop it. May be the minister is worried about losing his interests!

5. A leader who is not worried about poor workmanship at Kaleswaram and Yadadri temple is unfit to lead India: What can we expect from such a leader at the national level?

6. A leader who does no respect neighbouring states is unfit to lead India: We have seen KCR follow respected PM Narendra Modi in respect of non-BJP states. He is creating hurdles in water sharing due to which the AP government wasted money and time. Now, he has claimed submergence of backwaters of Polavaram in Telangana state and is asking the AP government to pay compensation as per R&R Package of 2013 Act while he himself is not paying the farmers as per the same Act. In fact, the Polavaram project started in 2005 and developed the R&R package, which was appreciated by the then PM and recommended to the Planning Commission to develop the same for the country. The first phase of Polavaram R&R package was paid as per that. The Act of R&R developed in 2013 and thus is not applicable in the true spirit to Polavaram project displaced families; but it applies to those displaced by Telangana state projects as they started after 2014.

7. A leader who has no vision for agriculture is unfit to lead India: We have seen the miserable planning in procurement of paddy, Rabi cultivation programme 2022. Simply giving Rythu Bandu is not agriculture planning. About the three agri bills of Modi, KCR initially supported them but after seeing the farmers movement, he changed his strategy and opposed the three bills. Telangana has no proper agriculture policy and this can be seen with cotton and seeds—adulterated seed sale, unapproved seeds sale, etc.

8. A leader who encourages defections for survival is unfit to lead India: In the case of defections, both the giver and taker have been escaping from the clutches of law as they are weak and ambiguous. We have seen both Narendra Modi and KCR survive with defectors (individuals, parties or states) from other political parties. The defectors look at monetary gains and/or position, though they were not elected by the people for that party. In TS, most defectors are from TDP and Congress and joined both TRS and BJP.

9. A leader with poor vision on healthcare systems for the poor is unfit to lead India: Well-established government healthcare system in rural India after Independence is dying. Currently, we see in Telangana state as well as in India that poor men's government healthcare system has been replaced with private rich men's healthcare system wherein they are looting lakhs and crores both from the rich and the poor, wherein a major share is going towards good for nothing tests—doctors rarely see the patients and start costly treatments. In Hyderabad, over a short period, private hospitals' profits have gone up to thousands and lakhs of crores. Though, Arogyasree programme was introduced by the earlier government—subsidized health care and education—the main health problems were a result of polluted food and environment (air, water, and food).

Disclaimer: This article is written by Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy, Formerly Chief Technical Advisor – WMO/UN &V Expert – FAO/UN, Fellow, Telangana Academy of Sciences [Founder Member], and Convenor, Forum for a Sustainable Environment. The views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not represent the views of NewsMeter. We have not changed, added, or omitted anything to the text. NewsMeter is not responsible for the accuracy of the facts and the content of external links included in the article.