At the time of the merger of Hyderabad and Andhra states in 1956, Hyderabad was the fifth largest city in India. It had underground drainage, two major public hospitals, several superspeciality hospitals, one large university and welldeveloped road and railway networks. These were put in place by the Nizam under the able advice of his Prime Minister, Pt Kishan Pershad and his Chief of Police, Kotwal Venkatrama Reddy. It possessed beautiful buildings that could house the important offices of the state. The city boasted of a cosmopolitan culture with Tamilians, Marathis, Telugus, Persians, British, French, African and North Indians living alongside Muslims of various persuasions. Irrespective of origin, many were conversant with Urdu or its local variant, Deccani. This long history of living with many cultures gave the city a culture of openness. Due to these reasons, Ambedkar recommended that it should be made the second capital of India. It is precisely for this reason that all the major politicians of Andhra state, including T Prakasam coveted Hyderabad as a capital.
Not a single town in Andhra state such as Kurnool, Rajahmundry, Vijayawada or Visakhapatnam had even a fraction of the facilities, buildings or land for expansion as was available in Hyderabad of 1956. Hyderabad’s unseemly and unsustainable expansion in the last three decades has been due to the relaxing of Mulki rules; conversion of Hyderabad into a `free zone’ where non-Telangana people were given free rein to set up industries and to get education and employment.
The policy of `development’ of got concentrated only in the surrounding districts of Hyderabad.
——Agencies