HYDERABAD: IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Wednesday demanded that the BJP leaders in Telangana tender an apology to the people for not bringing the Information Technology and Investment Region (ITIR) project to the State. Rama Rao’s comments come a day after BJP State president Bandi Sanjay Kumar wrote a letter to him regarding the issue, which the IT Minister termed as a bundle of lies.
Rama Rao recalled that ITIR projects in several other States too have been shelved by the BJP government. In fact, Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had made it clear that the projects were shelved, yet the BJP leaders have been blaming the State government, he said.
In a statement, Rama Rao recalled that there was no much progress on the ITIR project sanctioned for Bengaluru either, even though the BJP is in power there as well as at the Centre. “Is the TRS government responsible for the non-starter of ITIRs in AP, Odisha and Karnataka too,” he wondered.
Saying he will give the detailed project report (DPR) and other reports of the Hyderabad ITIR to Sanjay Kumar, Rama Rao challenged him to bring the project to Telangana. If the BJP leaders have any sincerity towards the State, they should pressure the Centre to sanction the ITIR or any other important IT project for Telangana.
Meanwhile, during a press meet at Telangana Bhavan, TRS MP G Ranjith Reddy, and MLAs KP Vivekanand and A Jeevan Reddy recalled that Rama Rao wrote 14 letters to the Centre asking it to sanction the ITIR. But there was no response, they said. Ranjith Reddy wondered why the BJP MPs from the State were not speaking up on the ITIR project in Lok Sabha.