Telangana tops in OTR, Irrigation coverage; WeHub good boost to women entrepreneurs

Hyderabad: Telangana State’s collection of OTR has been recognised by the Central government as being the highest in the country at 88 per cent in the Economic Survey Report 2024-2025.

The report, released by the Central Government on Friday, has praised a couple of achievements of Telangana State including the We Hub initiative taken up by the previous BRS government.

What is Own Tax Revenue (OTR)?

To begin with, Telangana’s fiscal health stands at 88 per cent of the State’s Own Tax Revenue (OTR) between April-November last year through VAT (tax on excise and petroleum products), Stamps and Registrations Duties, Land Tax, Commercial Taxes, Sales Taxes and others.

“For 15 states, OTR accounted for more than half of their total tax receipts, the highest being Telangana at 88 per cent, followed by Karnataka and Haryana at 86 per cent each,” it said.

WE Hub

The Economic Survey cited WE Hub or the Women Entrepreneurs Hub in Hyderabad as ‘a good example’ from the state on how the support of the government can help women’s entrepreneurship flourish.

We Hub was started with the mission to ensure all women entrepreneurs in the country have access to technical, financial, governmental and policy support required to start up, scale up, sustain and accelerate with global market access. It has raised Rs 177 crore in funding so far. As many as 6,376 start-ups and SMEs have been incubated, engaging around 7,828 entrepreneurs since inception, it said.

Speaking to NewsMeter, Deepthi Ravula, founding WeHub CEO who drove the initiative since its inception said, “Rarely does one get an opportunity to create the first of its kind of a platform for a young state catering especially to women entrepreneurs. WeHub enabled women across socio-economic strata to go from wanting to be entrepreneurs to becoming entrepreneurs. Equal credit to all team members across the years. WeHub could not have been possible without the support of the then minister KT Rama Rao and senior IAS officer and additional chief secretary Jayesh Ranjan.”

Telangana exhibits 86 per cent irrigation coverage

Telangana exhibited around 86 per cent irrigation coverage of its gross cropped area due to the construction of new irrigation projects, it said.

Coverage and intensity of irrigation are two other significant areas where the state has been ranked among the best. With 86 per cent irrigation coverage of its gross cultivated area, Telangana is second only to Haryana (94%), and Punjab (98%) in this regard.

Between the 2016-2021 fiscal year, India experienced a significant increase in irrigation area coverage and intensity. The coverage of irrigation area has increased between 2016-2021 from 49.3 per cent to 55 per cent of the gross cropped area (GCA), while irrigation intensity has risen from 144.2 per cent to 154.5 per cent.

States such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana exhibit high irrigation coverage of their gross cropped area with figures around 98 per cent, 94 per cent 84 per cent and 86 per cent, respectively. In contrast, states like Jharkhand and Assam lag significantly, with irrigation coverage below 20 per cent, underscoring the necessity to improve irrigation.

Telangana achieves 100 per cent coverage under Jal Jeevan Mission

The report also highlighted the targets achieved in segments like rural and urban drinking water.

The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) aims to ensure long-term water security for rural households by providing reliable access to safe piped drinking water. When it was launched in August 2019, only 3.23 crore (17%) of rural households had tap water connections.

Since then, over 12.06 crore families have been added, increasing the total to more than 15.30 crore (79.1%) out of approximately 19.34 crore rural households as of November 26, 2024. Eight states, namely, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Telangana and Mizoram, and three union territories, namely, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman Diu and Puducherry have achieved 100 per cent coverage.

There are 2,160 water quality laboratories, 1,570 of which are accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, ensuring the safety of drinking water.

Telangana excel in the service sector

With high per capita service GSVA (gross state value added) and service shares in GSVA, Telangana is ranked among the top performers in the service sector, along with Karnataka and Kerala. However, because these areas rely heavily on urbanized service-driven economies, their industrial per capita GSVA is only modest.