This question comes up time and again, whenever chief ministers from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh go all the way to Davos in Switzerland to take part in the World Economic Summit by spending crores of rupees of public money.
The same question is being raised by critics this time, too, when Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy and his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu went all the way to Davos to sign memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with Indian companies.
Take for instance, the Telangana government signing an MoU with Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL) to establish a 2,160 MW Pumped Storage Project in the state at a cost of Rs 11,000 crore.
At the same time, MEIL also signed another MoU to set up 1,000 MW batter energy storage system in various locations in the state.
Similarly, the MEIL also signed an agreement for setting up a Luxury Wellness Resort at Anantagiri in Vikarabad. All these MoUs were formalized during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
On Wednesday, the Telangana government also signed another MoU with CtrlS Data Centres Limited at Davos to establish a AI data centre Cluster in Telangana.
The proposed data centre cluster will feature a capacity of 400 MW, representing an investment of Rs 10,000 crores.
Both MEIL and CtrlS are actually Hyderabad-based companies and Revanth could have signed the agreements in Hyderabad itself, as the promoters can approach the chief minister in the state secretariat itself. There is no need to go all the way to Davos.
Similarly, the chief minister also signed an agreement with Bengaluru-based HCL Tech for launching a new tech centre in Hyderabad. This can also happen either in Bengaluru or in Hyderabad.
Similarly, Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is also signing an MoU with Greenko for a green energy plant in the state.
Needless to say, Greenko is an Andhra-based company and its promoters are close to the TDP and Jana Sena. So, why go all the way to Davos to sign an agreement?
