Who gets to keep the pearl city?

The Telangana agitation that started out over a larger cultural and geographic identity has now narrowed itself to where the real deal is: Hyderabad. Sai Manish finds out why

Congress MLAs at a press conference after resigning from their seats

State of mind Congress MLAs at a press conference after resigning from their seats

JUST OFF the highway to Srisailam in Ranga Reddy district’s Srinagar village, Rama Rao, along with four other workers, toil on 650 acres of barren land, making markings and putting up signposts. What’s unusual is that the interests of this Telangana labourer, earning Rs 130 a day, converges with the interests of an Andhra politician who presides over a $3 billion empire in the middle of nowhere.

Here is how.

In the next eight years, Discovery City, which these five men are helping build, would have gobbled up more than Rs 5,000 crore in investment and would be a city in itself — Telangana’s answer to the Lavasa project near Pune.

These five toddy-sipping workers from Telangana, though, are blissfully unaware that their future and the future of their children would be inextricably tied to the success of this mega project being executed by the Ramky Group, owned by TDP MP Modgula Venugopala Reddy.

Located well inside Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district, but tantalisingly close to Hyderabad, this project, with the potential of employing 1,00,000 people in numerous schools (including one by the Art of Living Foundation), hospitals, malls, hotels, special economic zones and residential apartments and bungalows will be relying heavily on a political solution to the current impasse over a separate state of Telangana.

However ironic it may sound, this billion-dollar project doesn’t need either Telangana or Rayalaseema or Coastal Andhra for its success both as a commercial venture and as a development initiative. Its success will be determined not by any other region, but by its proximity to Hyderabad, a city that will be the venture’s umbilical cord for decades after its completion.

“When I was a kid, my mother used to feed me toddy as she had little milk to give us,” says Rama Rao as he takes a break from digging up trenches, “but now things are much better. We all want a separate Telangana but they should leave Ranga Reddy and Hyderabad alone. All my life’s earnings have come from working in the construction sector in the city. I tell the leaders — let them have what they want, but just leave the city alone.”

‘Let them have what they want, but just leave the city alone,’ says Rama Rao, a daily labourer

The venture is like a joey sitting pretty in its mother’s pouch fearing that it might be plucked away by the Telangana boomers. If the workers here fear for their livelihood, the owners fear for their investments and profitability. And that is why the multi-millionaire Venugopala Reddy has been holding placards and shouting on top of his voice in the Lok Sabha for a United Andhra Pradesh. Because quite like the workers who fear for their freedom of movement across borders in search of work, Reddy fears investment flows from enterprising Andhra businessmen will be stymied if Hyderabad is made a part of Telangana.
A woman confronting the police during a rally

Hope and despair A woman confronting the police during a rally

Reddy’s fears can be explained by the massive investments made by his Ramky Group in Hyderabad alone. The MP’s company constructed the outer ring road that serves as an artery for spreading out development around Hyderabad at a cost of Rs 400 crore. Ramky also manages Hyderabad’s conventional and biomedical wastes through its subsidiaries. It is developing high-rise residential projects in Hyderabad’s upcoming Gachibowli locality with an investment of Rs 400 crore, apart from building the luxurious CEO Enclave at a similar cost. Add to that, its uber posh triplex bungalow project, Ramky Pearl, where each house will be sold upwards of Rs 2 crore. Upping the stakes is another futuristic multi-product development park being planned by Ramky in Hyderabad, with an investment of Rs 500 crore. In total, Modugula Reddy’s firm has close to Rs 7,000 crore at stake in and around Hyderabad in the years to come. In comparison, the only notable projects of the group outside the Telangana region in AP are in Warangal, where it is building a housing project at a cost of Rs 216 crore and another Rs 500 crore in the functioning Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City in Vizag.

“Hyderabad in Telangana will be separated from the rest of the state by two districts — Nalgonda and Mahabubnagar. Anti-social elements may use this area as a buffer zone and enforce blockades, badly hurting everyone in Hyderabad and the whole state,” fears Reddy. And that is where fears of a casual worker earning Rs 130 a day and a politician-businessman who has investments worth Rs 7,000 crore at stake meet — in a city that has a Metropolitan Development Area five times the size of the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi.

EVEN SOME pro-Telangana leaders admit that the biggest impediment to a new state may not be river-sharing, resource allocation or administrative reorganisation. At the centre of what Union Home Minister P Chidambaram described as a “complicated issue” is the question of Hyderabad. The city has become a magnet for investments over the years and is now the preferred destination for MNCs like Facebook, Google and many others, which in turn, has spurred a massive real estate boom. All of it is controlled by Andhra businessmen — among them many senior MPs and MLAs with vested business interests, unwilling to let a veritable goldmine slip out of their hands. This heady cocktail of power, politics and big money makes Hyderabad a prized possession: Telangana leaders see it as a new centre of gravity for spurring development in a separate Telangana while Andhra leaders see the city’s 21st century global avatar as a fruit of their labour that cannot be “gifted away” for the sake of political convenience.

“Hyderabad has to be a part of Telangana,” says Telangana Joint Action Committee (T-JAC) convener M Kodandaram. “One cannot spoil the geographical contiguity of Telangana by taking away Hyderabad. We will make sure that every group is protected in Hyderabad, which has always been a multi-cultural city. There can be no Telangana without Hyderabad and no Hyderabad without Telangana.”

What’s at stake

Politician-businessmen have a lot to lose over the Hyderabad question

T Subbarami Reddy, MP

Party: Congress

Firm: Gayatri Group

Total Investments in Telangana (including Hyderabad): Rs 4,900 crore

Notable projects
Nagarjuna Sagar Tail Pond link Canal, Khammam – Rs 1,088.21 crore

Four laning of Hyderabad- Karimnagar-Ramagundam SH-1 – Rs 2,200 crore

Eight-lane expressway as Outer Ring Road Patancheru to Shamirpet Rs 323.97 crore


Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, MP
Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, MLA

Party: Congress

Firm: Sushee Hitech group

Total investments in Telangana: Rs 228 crore

Notable projects
Coal excavation in Sinagreni JV – Rs 76 crore

Flood flow canal construction at Srirama sagar project – Rs 69 crore


Kavuri Sambasiva Rao, MP
Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, MP

Party: Congress

Firm: Transtroy India

Notable projects
Eight Lane expressway between Gachibowli and Shamshabad – Rs 699 crore

Komaram Bheem Irrigation Project, Adilabad – Rs 48.69 crore

Dr BR Ambedkar Pranahita Liftirrigation canal, Nizamabad – Rs 1,189.6 crore

Firm: Progressive Constructions

Projects in Telangana
Four hospitals in Hyderabad

True Friends Condominiums

Lagadapati Rajagopal, MP

Party: Congress

Firm: Lanco Group

Projects in Telangana
Lanco Hills, Hyderabad – 5,500 crore


Mekapati Rajmohan Reddy
Mekapati Chandrashekhara Reddy

Party: Jagan Mohan Reddy loyalists

Firm: KMC Constructions

Projects in Telangana
Eight-lane expressway in Hyderabad – Rs 427.82 crore

Eight-lane expressway Amberpet – Rs 376 crore


G Vivekanand, MP

Party: Congress

Firm: Manjeera Constructions, Vishaka Cements

Projects in Telangana
SEZ at Kukatapally Hyderabad – Rs 518.81 crore

Prime properties across Hyderabad, including Aditya Park Hotel, Manjeera Majestic Mall, Manjeera Platina Business District


Modugula Venugopala Reddy, MP

Party: TDP

Firm: Ramnky Group

Projects in Telangana
Outer ring road, Hyderabad – Rs 400 crore

Residential towers, Hyderabad – Rs 400 crore

Multi product park, Hyderabad – Rs 500 crore

Discovery City, Ranga Reddy – Rs 5,000 crore

Kodandaram wants the benefits of Hyderabad’s booming incomes to flow to Telangana. “Hyderabad has already seen massive growth and around 10 industrial towns are situated near it,” he says. “Now it is time to shift them, especially agroprocessing units, to interior Telangana to spread the fruits of development.”

And it is this fear of disturbing the existing economic order that has sent shockwaves through the Congress-dominated politico-business community in Andhra Pradesh. One of them is T Subbarami Reddy, a Congress MP who is also the owner of the infrastructure and realestate behemoth Gayatri Group of industries. Subbarami’s group has also spread across Telangana, having undertaken irrigation and road works in the region. Of the total amount of Rs 4,313.63 crore invested in irrigation, his company has invested close to half the money, amounting to Rs 1,998 crore, in Telangana alone and all of it is concentrated in Khammam district where irrigation canals are being built to utilise the water stored in Nagarjuna Sagar. His group has also invested close to Rs 2,900 crore in road works in Telangana, which is almost a third of its total investments in road works across the country. But the jewel in its crown is the contract the group bagged for four-laning the Hyderabad- Ramagundam state highway, a project that goes right into Telangana’s Karimnagar district. This project alone is worth Rs 2,200 crore. Subbarami’s fear mirrors what politician- businessmen like him dread — that the frenzy of correcting historical injustices by Telangana leaders might severely hurt their business plans and at the same time end up helping their competitors.
Congress MLAs celebrating their resignation

Hope and despair Congress MLAs celebrating their resignation

But what separates politico-businessmen interests in the rest of Telangana from Hyderabad is the sense of power that comes in controlling swathes of prime property in a city that is so massive, that, according to the Justice Srikrishna report, it has become “imperative to ensure there is no destabilisation of the economy of Hyderabad, flight of capital or erosion of business confidence and safe access to the city”.

“Hyderabad is just a bargaining chip for the Andhra leaders,” says Kodandram. “The real interest is to use their influence in Hyderabad to corner contracts in backward areas in the rest of the country. The Andhra lobby will lose their influence if they have lesser MPs and do not have Hyderabad under their control.”

He is referring to anti-Telangana Congress MP from Vijaywada, Lagadapati Rajagopal, whose billion-dollar Lanco Group has projects in every corner of the country, from Uttarakhand to Sikkim.

Like his TDP counterpart Modgula Venugopala Reddy, Lanco’s Congress owner too has a jewel in his Hyderabad crown in the form of the Rs 5,500 crore SEZ project called Lanco Hills located at Manikonda in Hyderabad. With a signature tower of 121 floors, a Grand Hyatt hotel, 15 residential towers, 11 office towers, a multiplex and club house, the MP’s project is too valuable to be left to the vagaries of Telangana’s agitational style of politics.

‘The united-Andhra movement is just pushed by business interests,’ says a pro-Telangana MP

Says pro-Telangana Congress MPHanumantha Rao: “These Andhra businessmen are trying to influence the Congress high command just to protect their investments. They are lying about a non-existent united- Andhra movement.”

There are a large number of businessmen with vested interests in Hyderabad and Telangana across party lines. Most of them cite the constant disruption of public services in the form of bandh calls by parties like the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) as an indication of what might happen to their investments in case Hyderabad is made part of Telangana.

What makes the Hyderabad issue even trickier is the involvement of students who claim it is not just a future growth accelerator for a new Telangana, but also as a city that has always been their own. Passions flare up among students when reminded of the immense contribution of Andhra settlers in the city. “If Malayalees go and live in Dubai, does it mean they can lay claim to owning it? Hyderabad is ours and Telangana without it is like a lion without its teeth,” says Ratna Teja, an Osmania University student from Nizamabad.

The skewed development of Hyderabad is evident from the fact that the megalopolis, along with the adjoining Ranga Reddy district, accounts for 40 of the 72 notified SEZs in Andhra Pradesh. The money-spinning SEZs are virtually absent in Telangana, with only three notified zones, which explains the desperation of both sides laying claim to Hyderabad. Both also constitute half the manufacturing, construction and transportation base of the region.

Even though the macro-economy can be taken care of, it is the micro-business interests that would be difficult to tackle when deciding the final contours of a new state. The inextricable links of business interests with the power structures in the state may be hard to disentangle, considering that Andhra’s politicians are not just sub-regional but also national players when it comes to leveraging their power to bag million-dollar contracts.

Every movement evolves over time. The Telangana movement has never been closer to the realisation of a new state, but it is the last leg of the battle that may prove to be the hardest.

Thanks for tehalka correspondent

Source:
http://tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ne160711Who.asp