HYDERABAD: Asserting that his vision was to make Telangana a $1 trillion economy in the next 10 years, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Wednesday said that the state is not competing with its neighbours but with the world.
“No neighbouring state has a city like Hyderabad or environment like Telangana,” he told the gathering after inaugurating the new campus of IT giant Cognizant at Kokapet.
“After the change of government in Andhra Pradesh, some people started saying that there will be competition between AP and Telangana. There is also a discussion that investments may go to AP. I will make it clear that our competition is not with Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka or Tamil Nadu — our competition is with the world. We have the city of Hyderabad. We have expanded our way of thinking. A Fourth City is being designed to cater to the needs of the world,” Revanth said.
He added: “Telangana has three rings — the core urban inner ring Hyderabad; the semi-urban second ring which will become a manufacturing hub with the help of the Regional Ring Road and will be our answer to China+1 strategy for American and Korean companies and the third ring beyond the RRR— rural Telangana where we will develop the best villages in Asia with all facilities.”
All rulers worked to develop Hyd: Revanth
Stating that the state government will extend complete support to Cognizant which has a major presence in Hyderabad with about 60,000 employees, Revanth said that he hoped that soon the company will have one lakh employees in Hyderabad. He hailed Cognizant for helping solve the problem of unemployment in Telangana.
“With the support of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the then chief minister Nedurumalli Janardhan Reddy laid the foundation for the IT sector in Hyderabad in 1992. Thereafter, TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu built Hitec City and after the IT sector started thriving, YS Rajashekar Reddy developed Cyberabad. “From Quli Qutb Shah to Chandrababu Naidu, no ruler has compromised in developing Hyderabad,” Revanth said.
IT and Industries Minister D Sridhar Babu, Special Chief Secretary for IT and Industries Jayesh Ranjan, Cognizant CEO S Ravi Kumar and others were present. He said: “Hyderabad is competing with the world. To expand the city, the government decided to develop the fourth city- Future City, near the airport.”
Hoping for Cognizant’s presence in the Future City, Revanth pointed out that though there has been change of governments in the state, the policies with respect to the incentives to industries have not changed.
Addressing the gathering, Sridhar Babu said the government planned to build a state-of-art “AI city”.
“Now the disruptive technologies are in place. If we don’t integrate or embrace the technology of AI, we will fall back. So, that is the reason we are integrating AI technology to every vertical of our governance and private firms. For that we are creating the infrastructure,” he said.
Sridhar Babu praised Hyderabad for its environment, work culture, and talented workforce, saying that the city has gained immense global recognition. He recalled that Cognizant began its operations in Hyderabad in 2002 with just 182 employees, and now has 60,000 employees.