Telangana's Information Technology and Industry Ministry KT Rama Rao on Thursday said that the statement on Information Technology and Investment Region (ITIR) in Hyderabad given by Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Sanjay Dhotre in the Lok Sabha, was "factually incorrect."
Dhotre was responding to a question by BJP Telangana president and MP from Karimnagar, Bandi Sanjay Kumar on Wednesday. The Union Minister said, "The Government of Telangana was asked to submit the required information to the concerned ministries with intimation to MeitY. No information was furnished by the Government of Telangana."
Hitting back, KTR, as the Telangana minister is known, claimed that inspite of submitting all necessary information, the Detailed Project Report (DPR) and also several reminders in the last six years, the Union Minister chose to mislead the House. KTR said that it was very unfair on the part of the NDA government and the Telangana BJP leaders to blame the Telangana government despite repeated requests by the state government to the Union government.
He recalled that the first such letter was written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao as soon as the state of Telangana was formed in June 2014.
KTR submitted another detailed memorandum on ITIR to the Union government in September 2014.
He said in 2016 he met the then Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya to present the DPR in response to the latter's comments that the Telangana government did not submit a project report for ITIR.
"Though the Telangana government presented a project report on ITIR twice, Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya commented that we did not submit the DPR. Probably he might have been misguided by officials. To put things straight and make facts clear, I personally met him, informed him, and also presented the DPR of ITIR once again," KTR had told the media after meeting Dattatreya.
KTR said that several reminders about the ITIR Project were submitted to Prime Minister Modi and Union Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad over the last six years. "Yet the NDA government chose to ignore these requests. The intention to discontinue the ITIR Project was very clearly understood by the non-committal responses of NDA government."
Last month, KTR wrote a letter to Prasad requesting funds for the ITIR project. Yet, the union government did not allocate a single rupee in the current year's budget, he said.
"While the facts are thus, it is unfortunate that Union Minister Sanjay Dhotre chose to issue a factually incorrect statement. It is also irresponsible on the part of state BJP leaders to resort to a smear campaign on the Telangana state government without ascertaining the facts," he added.