The Congress government in Telangana, helmed by Chief Minister Anumula Revanth Reddy, is celebrating its first anniversary with much fanfare. In the 10-day celebrations named Praja Palana Vijayotsavalu, which started on December 1, Congress leaders have highlighted the government’s achievements, while dismissing criticism about undelivered promises and papering over the dissent against some big projects and land acquisition plans.
The Telangana Congress’ election manifesto, armed with which the party ousted the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government in the November 2023 Assembly election, was filled with welfare and reform measures and the promise of a transparent and accessible government. This along with the unfulfilled aspirations of the people for Telangana’s statehood, the many pending promises of the BRS, and the public discontent against the inaccessibility and unilateral style of governance of the then Chief Minister and BRS leader, K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), sealed the victory for the Congress.
When the Congress won the Telangana Assembly election on December 3, 2023, it inherited a State greatly stifled by debt (the outstanding debt stood at Rs.6,12,343 crore in December 2023, from loans taken during the two terms of the BRS). Despite the precarious financial condition, the Congress government managed to fulfil some of its election promises, including implementing a farm loan waiver. It also created an active grievance redressal mechanism (both online and offline), improved (compared with the BRS) the people’s access to bureaucrats and elected representatives, initiated a comprehensive socio-economic and caste survey (nearing completion), and created a controversial urban body (HYDRAA) to restore the lakes in the State.
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A significant concern, however, is the looming legitimacy crisis as most of the mega projects announced by the government face stiff opposition from the public. The criticism is that the government has taken unilateral decisions without consulting the stakeholders. The Musi riverfront development project is one such. Protests against a proposed “pharma village” in Lagacherla (in the Chief Minister’s constituency) have prompted the government to pivot to building an industrial corridor instead. Efforts to acquire land for Future City (a new city on the periphery of existing Greater Hyderabad) have also hit a wall.
By all accounts, the government’s performance has been a mixed bag. But the opposition BJP and the BRS have been peddling the political narrative that the Congress government’s first year has been a failure. In fact, the BJP has contested the Congress’ claims of success in Telangana (and Karnataka) in the electoral battles of other States such as Maharashtra.
All talk, no cash
Much before the election results came out, experts warned that the State did not have the wherewithal to fulfil all six guarantees immediately. The people of the State too are not unfamiliar with ruling parties taking years to implement electoral guarantees. However, the party set itself up for failure when it announced a 100-day deadline to implement the “six guarantees” of its election manifesto, and hence, several of them remain unfulfilled.
The Telangana Congress manifesto included six core guarantees and a long list of other welfare and reform measures meant for women, students, farmers, poor families, senior citizens, and disabled people, among others. These guarantees indeed have the potential for a cascading positive effect on a large section of the disempowered population (see infographic). For instance, the free bus service (State transport) for women has not only helped them save money but also enhanced their mobility. This was the first scheme to be implemented after the oath-taking ceremony, and a year later, the Telangana government has spent over Rs.1,300 crore subsidising travel for women. In the other two guarantees made to women, the gas cylinder subsidy has been implemented, whereas the monthly cash support of Rs.2,500 is yet to be initiated.
The Congress government in Telangana has implemented one of its six election guarantees, the Mahalakshmi scheme providing free travel for women. Finance Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said the amount would be reimbursed by the State government to the transport department on a monthly basis.
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RAMAKRISHNA G
Among the guarantees made to farmers, the government has fulfilled the promise of giving a Rs.500 bonus on the minimum support price for paddy.
Another potentially transformative assurance was to provide investment support to not only landed farmers but also tenants, twice a year. Under the Rythu Bharosa scheme, the Congress also assured landless labourers of financial assistance. The party also formed a subcommittee to study the scheme’s implementation, but it has yet to begin deliberations. Revanth Reddy recently said that the government would work towards depositing the promised Rs.7,500 per acre starting with the Sankranti festival (January 2025). However, it has not been made clear whether tenants would also benefit. The tenant farmers, aided by civil society groups, held a public hearing and protest on December 4. Over 300 tenant farmers from across the State participated and demanded that the government recognise tenants as farmers and include them as beneficiaries of schemes such as Rythu Bima, Rythu Bharosa, and crop insurance.
The increase in pensions (Cheyutha scheme) for senior citizens (and others) and the financial assistance cards (Vidya Bharosa Card) for students are among the guarantees that have seen no progress at all. Other guarantees too have been announced but not implemented. Currently, the government appears to be implementing those among the six guarantees that are not significantly eating into the State budget. A year after coming to power, the Congress is working on more realistic deadlines and implementing the schemes in phases.
Wooing farmers of the agrarian state
The most significant welfare spend in the first year of the Congress government was not on one of the “six guarantees”. It was on a farm loan waiver. The Rs.20,617 crore waiver has helped over 25 lakh farmers until now. Both the BJP and the BRS have demanded that the government complete the waiver forthwith.
Kanneganti Ravi, a farm sector expert and member of the Telangana People’s Joint Action Committee, acknowledges that the implementation of the loan waiver has been relatively swift, notwithstanding the leakages that left some farmers behind.
The Telangana government has claimed that it spent nearly Rs.57,000 crore on the welfare and development of farmers in its first year. However, the expense has been overstated; the government has included routine payouts on paddy and other grain procurement as welfare and development spending (more than Rs.10,000 crore was allocated for paddy procurement and over Rs.600 crore for grain procurement through Markfed, the Telangana Co-operative Marketing Federation Ltd).
The Congress has also made multiple announcements about rejoining the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (a Central government–led crop insurance scheme) over the past year. However, it has deferred the move until the next Kharif (August 2025) season.
Members of Telangana Rashtra Rythu Sangham hold a rally in Khammam town on August 27 demanding that the Congress government waive farmers loans of up to Rs 2 lakh immediately, free of conditions.
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By Special Arrangement
“Farmers are facing losses due to this delay as unseasonal rains have damaged the crops,” said Ravi. The government has claimed that it deposited nearly Rs.80 crore towards crop loss compensation for 80,000 acres, but the amount is inadequate as, according to the government’s own preliminary estimates, crops were damaged in over 1.5 lakh acres, whereas other stakeholders pegged the figure at 4 lakh acres.
“The GST structure and the Central government’s control of most of the finances create a lot of inflexibility at the State level in gathering revenues. And Telangana has large outstanding loans, which essentially means large service charges on the interest of the loans,” G. Vijay, an assistant professor at the School of Economics, University of Hyderabad, told Frontline.
In September, speaking at a conclave of Finance Ministers, Telangana Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, who is also in charge of Finance and Planning, stated that there is a need for a recalibration of the Centre-States power-sharing agreement. The government has also asked for its share in Central taxes to be raised to 50 per cent (currently it is 41 per cent).
There is little scope to get creative with revenue, Vijay said. But as the Congress has come to represent an interest in reviving the welfare state, its credibility has become deeply intertwined with the fulfilment of electoral promises, he added.
The financial workaround
On July 25, Bhatti Vikramarka presented the 2024-25 State budget amidst such constraints. The total budget estimate was about Rs.2.91 lakh crore. The revenue receipts were estimated as Rs.2.24 lakh crore. As per the data from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Telangana’s total revenue receipts as of October were about 41 per cent of the projected estimates. Meanwhile, the State has already surpassed over 71 per cent of its borrowing limits for the year. “As a result, they are trying to harness funds through short-term measures, which might get them access to finances in the short run. And that is the reason all these new industrial corridors and projects are being announced in quick succession,” Vijay explained.
In recent months, the mega project announcements and the consequent land acquisition proposals have antagonised people who stand to lose their land. While the Congress dismisses the opposition to the projects as a political narrative created by opposition parties against its measures to develop the State, experts and civil society members caution that the ruling party needs to re-evaluate its priorities and avoid following in the footsteps of its predecessor, the BRS.
In Lagacherla, where the government wanted to build a pharma village, protests and news of violence against protesters caught national attention. However, it was dealt with by restricting access to the village. Police even stopped civil society members from conducting a fact-finding visit.
“Each of these are consequential and need the moderation of stakeholder opinion. Given the massive impact each of these projects is expected to have on many lives, a more democratic, wider consultation was expected but it didn’t happen,” Padmaja Shaw, a media critic and a retired professor of journalism at Osmania University, told Frontline. Shaw attempted to visit Lagacherla but was stopped. “The 10 years of the BRS were an unmitigated disaster. The Congress party should have shown more concern by concentrating on [public] education and health. Instead, it has taken the path of mega projects. Priorities have been as wrong as before. The same forces are at work,” Shaw said.
While the rhetoric of the Congress government’s focus on health and education has been persistent, the allocations have remained below the average expenditure allocation by States (Telangana allocated about 8.6 per cent for education and 4 per cent for health, which is lower than the average spend by States).
“During the Assembly election last year, the Congress promised to waive farm loans of up to Rs.2 lakh by August 15 this year, if elected. The Congress government has overshot the deadline, but it is implementing the loan waiver in tranches.”
Recently, the Congress made further commitments despite the lack of new revenue avenues. Chief Minister Revanth Reddy announced that Rs.20,000 crore would be spent annually to develop the Palamuru region (Reddy belongs to this region).
“I think the challenge before the Congress is how it takes on the delegitimising [attempts by the opposition]. It is better that the Congress thinks through it seriously than go for easy options [such as land acquisition],” Vijay said.
Ravi said: “In the past few weeks, the government has had to retreat on Dilawarpur [proposed ethanol project halted] and Lagacherla [plans for pharma village cancelled]. There wasn’t much scope for retreat during the BRS government. With the Congress, where there is active pushback and protests from the people, there is some retreat.”
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When it comes to the issue of access to both elected representatives and bureaucrats, the situation has improved since the Congress came to power. There is no one-man-governance model like KCR’s. However, one must see how much of the feedback reflects in the government’s actions, he added.
An avenue for redressal
Soon after coming to power, the Congress government installed a grievance redressal mechanism—Praja Vani—enabling the people of Telangana to lodge their grievances and monitor the status of the resolution, both online and offline. This initiative continues to receive public endorsement. Civil society members and activists, too, use this platform to bring attention to overlooked issues. Experts say there is definitely an improvement in governance.
There is now better access and the government is more responsive to public opinion. But transparency, especially in cases of big decisions that affect people’s lives, is lacking. No specific information is made available in the public domain before unilateral decisions are imposed on the people, Shaw said.
S.Q. Masood, RTI activist and co-founder of ASEEM, an NGO working for the rights of marginalised people, pointed out: “The Congress manifesto emphasised the importance of RTI, pledging to upload all Government Orders in the public domain. However, a year has passed since the Congress came to power, and these promises remain unfulfilled. Telangana also lacks a functional RTI portal. It was established last year but remains non-operational.”
The promise of a prajala (people’s) Telangana replacing the dorala (feudal) Telangana of the BRS regime was a Congress election plank that had found much resonance. Transparency, accountability, accessibility, and restoration of democratic systems became key assurances.
The Congress still has four years to go in Telangana. That is still a lot of time to get on the right track.
