Govt to unleash IT revolution in Telangana

Hyderabad: The Telangana government would soon extend the e-Panchayat programme to 7,000 villages across the new state, the Panchayat Raj and Information Technology Minister K Taraka Rama Rao said on Tuesday.

A common service center would be established to serve as a gateway through which the NREGS wages and pensions could be paid, the Minister told the media in New Delhi.

In a bid to make Hyderabad the first fully Wi-Fi enabled metro city in the country, the state Government was holding talks with various telecom service providers to offer the services, he said.

"We are taking a leaf out of cities like Mountain View and Houston for offering Wi-Fi services. We are speaking to service providers," KTR said, adding that they were also looking at Ahmedabad and Bangalore where Wi-Fi services are available on a limited basis.

Asked whether any time line has been set for it, Rao said they are working to have it at the earliest but no deadline has been fixed as yet. Hyderabad city, which has a population of 12 million, is one of the major IT hubs in the country. "We want to offer Wi-Fi services to enable more citizen services," he said.

During his Delhi trip, KTR met several Ministers, seeking financial help to the state and to introduce new schemes. He met Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari and Santosh Kumar Gangwar and discussed the nitty-gritties of handloom and power looms of the state.

He wanted the Central minister to enhance the amount being given to modernize the power looms from Rs 15,000 to Rs 1.50 lakhs. He also wanted that in place of group workshops, individual workshops should be encouraged.

The Minister said that Telangana inherited power problems from the combined Andhra Pradesh and the power crisis reached the present stage due to lack of foresight by the erstwhile rulers.

'To overcome the power crisis in the state, the government has planned three pronged strategy. As a short term measure we would encourage solar power. Our objective is to produce 1,000 mw from solar power within a year,' the minister explained.

He made it clear that in the new electricity policy of the state, the solar power would be given priority. He said that the government would construct power transmission lines from Chattisgarh since it has surplus power and did not have connecting lines with the grid. He informed that though there was an opportunity to buy power from Chattisgarh, absence of transmission lines was a major hurdle.

As a long term policy to overcome the power crisis, government would produce 12,000 mw of power in the coming four years. He said that through NTPC 4,000 mw and from Telangana Genco 8,000 mw would be produced.

He informed that government was ready to produce power from Naphtha though it has to be imported at a higher cost. The minister said he has asked the Centre to enhance the financial help to the power looms from Rs 15,000 to Rs 1.50 lakh to modernize them.