In USA, KTR Meets IT, Healthcare Company Leaders

Telangana Industries, IT and MA&UD Minister K T Rama Rao, on a US trip, today interacted with the Mayors of Carmel and Indianapolis - cities that made their mark with what are widely considered the best practices in local governance.

During the interaction with K T Rama Rao at Carmel City Hall, Mayor James Brainard explained how they carried out the functions of providing drinking water supply, electricity, public transport and sewage management.

The two also discussed the public-private partnership and other models to raise funds for fuelling infrastructure projects.

Brainard said citizens extended full cooperation for the development of Carmel by paying taxes in time and in full. K T Rama Rao then was taken on a tour of the City Hall building where the minister sought to know how the local body's meetings were held and how the citizens were made part of them. He asked IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan to get complete details of the City Management Software through which the vehicular traffic, and water and electricity supply were being tracked live in Carmel, and to implement the smart technologies in the administration. The minister also examined the mobile app used by Carmel's citizens for registering their grievances.

KTR discussed with Joe Hogsett, Mayor of Indianapolis, city planning and administration, and the latter elaborated on the Bus Rapid Transit System built to support the expanding city and its growing population. The city was raising funds for creating basic infrastructure through municipal bonds, Hogsett said.

KTR later evinced keen interest in replicating the best practices of the two cities in Hyderabad.

On the second day of his USA visit, K T Rama Rao also met the leaders of reputed IT and healthcare companies in Indianapolis. He first met the CEO of Envista Corporation, a supply chain consulting and IT services company based in Indianapolis, and offered all necessary support for its expansion in Hyderabad.

The minister then met the leadership team of Interactive Intelligence, a global leader of cloud services for customer engagement, communications and collaboration. The senior functionaries of Interactive Intelligence appreciated the Telangana government's proactive approach to solving the power shortage issue in the State. They remarked that Hyderabad's culture was very warm and welcoming. The company officials also said that people from other cities in the country loved to work in Hyderabad. After discussions with the minister, the Interactive Intelligence leadership assured that they would soon be expanding their operations in Hyderabad.

Later in the day, KTR met Steve Akard, Chief of Staff, Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC). IEDC is Indiana's lead economic development agency. KTR and Akard agreed to continue and strengthen the sister city relationship that Hyderabad and Indianapolis currently share. Steve gave a high-level overview about the various sectors that Indiana was popular for and on how the agency promoted Indiana as an ideal State for investors. The IEDC team itself also explained how the agency collaborated with various stakeholders and promoted the State.

KTR had an in-depth discussion to understand the various initiatives of IEDC to promote Indiana. He was keen to explore the possibilities of investments in the medical devices sector, and explained threadbare the various initiatives the Telangana government was taking to improve the ease-of-doing-business ranking of the State.