According to Jayadev Galla, chairman of Amara Raja Energy & Mobility, while speaking about the finance situation of the Congress government in Telangana on Saturday, this company may have to look elsewhere for expanding plant capacity if it does not honor the commitments made by its previous BRS regime. Galla’s comments came at a time when Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and his team are touring the US trying to hard sell Telangana as an investment destination.
Earlier in the day, Amara Raja Group held a groundbreaking programme for their state-of-the-art Customer Qualification Plant for cell manufacturing and also inaugurated Phase 1 of the 1.5 GWh battery pack plant in Mahabubnagar district. The battery maker had signed a MoU with the previous BRS government for investing 9,500 crore, spread over 10 years, for setting up research and development and a Greenfield manufacturing facility for Lithium-Ion battery-making in Telangana, which has an ultimate capacity up to 16 GWh and a Battery Pack Assembly unit up to 5 GWh.
Galla said the previous government had made some commitments in terms of industrial incentives to bring this project to Telangana and expressed hope that they would be honoured by the present regime. “The doubt is, it’s a different government and till we see that happen, we won’t know. So we are hopeful, but I guess the financial situation of the government itself is in question whether they’re capable of paying these things. It is not about the intent, he said. Do they have the funds? Do they have the resources to honor those commitments?”.
BRS working president KT Rama Rao voiced serious concerns over the potential exit of the Amara Raja Group from Telangana, warning that the State’s economic reputation is at stake.
Rama Rao asserted that Telangana’s economic growth should not be undermined by political differences. He appealed to the Congress government to fulfill the commitments made by the previous BRS government to all investors who established their companies in Telangana, stressing the importance of maintaining the State’s appeal as a business destination.
He urged Chief Minister Revanth Reddy to refrain from making ludicrous statements about the State’s financial health, claiming that the State is in a debt trap and likening it to a cancer patient. “In reality, Telangana is a vibrant, revenue-surplus State with the highest per capita income in the country. Brand Telangana should not suffer because of our political differences,” he asserted.
