Govt will not insist on jobs to locals: KCR

Allays fears of industries; asks for jobs that do not need high skills

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhara Rao on Tuesday told the industry associations his government would not insist on giving jobs to locals but they are expected to provide employment  to local boys and girls in areas where high skills are not required.

The chief minister’s statement comes as a relief to the existing industries in Hyderabad as well as those who are planning to expand or set up their operations here.

Industrial base in Hyderabad is predominantly nurtured by entrepreneurs from the coastal Andhra region and they were apprehensive since the issue of non-locals getting the jobs had figured prominently in the separate statehood movement spearheaded by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi.

“I know that the companies will have to find and recruit people for high skill jobs from wherever they are available and it is not our intention to question that. However, if our boys and girls could be accommodated in jobs that do not require much of a skill differentiation we will feel grateful,” he told a packed audience representing a host of industry bodies.

Getting instant laurels from the industry representatives for ‘being practical and pragmatic’,  Rao also assured the investors at a day-long interactive session in the run-up to the finalisation of a new industrial policy that they would be given quick clearances and also freed from any governmental corruption in securing those clearances.

“All that I want from you is please utilise the last inch of land for the given purpose and make the local community feel part of your growth story,” he said. Protection and expansion of the existing industry  will be given top priority even while encouraging new investments in the state, he said.

Rao said he would make the state power surplus in the first three years of his tenure to provide quality supply of power to the industries and other sections of society. Laying a dedicated power transmission line between Telangana and power-surplus Chhattisgarh is one of the steps being contemplated to achieve this objective, according to him.

He also said state-owned Singareni Collieries Company Limited would be made an international player to produce and supply coal not just to the power plants in Telangana but across the country.