Editorial, ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES OF BIFURCATION, in 31 October 2014, Vol. 10, Part 2, No. 20 issue

ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES OF BIFURCATION

have emerged within months of the unfortunate and unwarranted partition of the Annapoorna State. As rightly forewarned by the former CM of united AP, ‘water wars (disputes)’ and ‘current kashtalu (troubles)’ are engulfing the regions, especially Telangana. For the spate of recent peasant suicides in Telangana, already commented upon in these columns earlier, the ‘current crisis’ is a main contributory factor. The excessive consumption of electricity by Telangana people is a main reason. The populist measure of free electricity to farmers has exacerbated the problem for, otherwise, the peasants would have perhaps continued or switched over to other less water-needing crops than paddy – for the cultivation of which these plateau lands, but for the supply of irrigation facilities at enormous cost, are not that suited. Well, the crisis has also brought to notice the phenomenal development of electricity generation in Telangana which shows no discrimination but more favor to this region in the united State. Except for the private power plants and non-conventional and renewable energy sources, all other power indicators in Telangana show high rise – it now possesses 6251.3 MW out of 12425.3 MW i.e. 50.3% of such electricity production of the united AP, and a disproportionately high share in power from hydel sector and central power generating stations [with but 42% of the total population in the united State]. However, the Goebbelsian propaganda by the separatists, continuing to this day, has depicted as if great injustices are, and are still being, done to Telangana in this sphere also – mainly to divert attention from real solutions to which they might not have even applied their minds properly. It is to be stressed that from the very low level of energy consumption with only 11 villages electrified [in contrast to 147 in Rayalaseema and 398 in coastal Andhra] in 1955-56, Telangana has now achieved total rural electrification even, but surely, as Gandhiji always stressed, there are not enough resources in the world to satisfy all the greed of the people. The real solution to such crisis lies not in quarrelling with the other Telugu State but cooperating in an amicable manner and, more important, concentrating on development of minor and medium irrigation schemes as are best suited to the topography and environmental conditions of this region and transforming the mode of agricultural production to one chiefly attuned to cultivation of semi-arid regional crops [metta pantalu], horticulture, floriculture, etc. §§§