Hyderabad: The drought conditions in the state for the second consecutive year will not have much of an impact on the state’s revenues, feels the Telangana government.
The reason, the contribution of agriculture sector for the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) is little over 17 per cent, and has been on a decline since 1995.
The state’s economy at present is primarily driven by the services and industry sector. But the government is more concerned about farmers and the rural economy if there is a drought again this year.
The new state of Telangana already holds the dubious distinction of standing second in the country for farmers’ suicides last year, as per data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The government is worried that more farmers may commit suicides this year if the monsoon fails as they had already invested a lot in crops due to good rains in June.
The crops, however, are failing due to a dry July. “Telangana registered a GSDP of nearly Rs 4 lakh crore in 2014-15. The economy grew by 5.3 per cent over 2013-14. This was because of the 9.7 per cent growth witnessed in the services sector. The agriculture sector meanwhile declined by 21.3 per cent,” said finance minister Etela Rajender.
He said the services sector had contributed 57 per cent to the GSDP, while it was only 17.9 per cent from agriculture and 25 per cent from industry.
The gap has only widened over the years. However, he said, it’s not about revenues, but the government was concerned about large scale migration of people from villages to towns in search of livelihoods in case of drought.
