Telangana growth shows encouraging trend, says governor

Hyderabad, March 7, 2015: The newly-created state of Telangana has begun its journey on a positive and progressive note and the growth shows encouraging trend, Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan said on Saturday. Addressing the joint session of the state legislature, he said in spite of facing several challenges post formation such as inadequate staff and non-availability of senior officers, considerable progress has been made on all fronts. He said the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) growth forecast for 2014-15 is estimated at 5.3 percent as against the growth rate of 4.8 percent in 2013-14. "The growth shows an encouraging trend in the new state. Despite a decline in the agriculture growth due to adverse monsoon, other allied sectors like livestock, forestry and fisheries have registered a good growth rate," said Narasimhan, who is governor for Andhra Pradesh as well. He noted that growth momentum in industrial (4.1 percent) and services (9.7 percent) sectors made major contribution to the increase in overall GSDP growth. The per capital income at current prices during 2014-15 is expected to be Rs.1,03,889 as compared to Rs.95,361 during 2013-14. The governor's address was marred by noisy protests by opposition Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP). TDP was demanding disqualification of some of its members who defected to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). Raising slogans against the government, some opposition legislators tore the papers of the governor's address and threw them towards the governor. TDP legislator Revant Reddy was seen standing on a bench and throwing pieces of papers towards the governor even as security personnel stood as a wall in between to protect the governor.