Devender Goud Quit TDP, starting party!

The Telugu Desam second in command, Mr T. Devender Goud, quit the party on Monday over its refusal to champion the cause of a separate Telangana state.

In his resignation letter, Mr Goud pointed out that the TD had performed well in the recent bypolls since it had announced that it was not against Telangana.

“But after the bypolls, some leaders in the party are again reiterating the united Andhra slogan, which is nothing but betraying the people of this region,” Mr Goud said.

He said the people of Telangana region have been exploited in every aspect by the other regions and also flayed the TD leadership for encouraging those who criticised him.

The Telangana protagonist, Devender Goud, will announce his new political outfit after a brainstorming session with Telangana intellectuals on June 28 in hyderabad.

The prospect of Mr Goud starting his own party is creating ripples in the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, which is espousing the cause of separate Telangana. The TRS ideologue, Prof K. Jayasankar, party adviser on irrigation matters Mr R. Vidyasagar Rao and some other intellectuals, who are backing TRS chief Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao called on Mr Goud at his residence on Tuesday.

It is learnt that Mr Rao sent Prof Jayasankar as an emissary to have a co-ordination with Mr Goud’s party. But, Mr Goud bluntly rejected the proposal of a tie-up with the TRS. “We won’t sail with the TRS under any circumstances,” he said.

The TRS leadership apparently feels that as Mr Goud belongs to the backward community and his goal is the same as that of the TRS, there may be mass migrations from the party to Mr Goud’s outfit in the backdrop of the recent debacle in the recent bypolls.

Prof Jayasankar said the Telangana movement has reached a crucial stage. He called upon all pro-statehood forces to launch a unified agitation. He said that Telangana statehood would be a reality after 2009 elections.

Carpooling takes off in Hyderabad

Parents of school children in the city are now going for carpooling to reduce the expenses of trips to the school and back.

The sharp rise in fuel prices has prompted them to use one car to ship a group of children in a locality to school rather than use individual vehicles.

This eases the pressure on their pockets. If the trend catches on, it will also decongest the city roads and reduce pollution.

A high ranking official in the Chief Minister’s Office said he had asked his son to get details of classmates who travel along the same route.

“We spoke to their parents and started using a single car instead of several to drop children to school and bring them back,” said the CMO official.

The group of five students now travels from Banjara Hills to Geetanjali Public School at Begumpet in a single car.

The parents are not sharing money but have adopted a rotation system whereby each one uses his or her car as per convenience.

The usual practice of parents is to drop their children to school in their own cars. This causes daily traffic snarls at Secunderabad, Begumpet, Abids, Narayanaguda, Mehdipatnam, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Ameerpet, S R Nagar and other prime localities in the city.

Vehicles have to inch for ward, losing precious minutes as well as precious fuel. Carpooling is likely to reduce these problems to an extent.

A freelance technocrat, Mr B. Leela Krishna, is also designing a software which will enable every school management to create a database of the addresses of children and their mode of transport.

Route maps thus prepared will help in effective carpooling and better management.

Carpooling had so far remained confined to only major metros such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, while the concept is relatively new in Chennai and Pune.

In Hyderabad, carpooling has come into vogue after the recent petrol price hike.

To begin with, office goers adopted the tactic to save money.

“Right now about 40 people have registered on our free website and started using the carpool facility,” said Channel9 Eventz head, Mr Srinivas Rahul.

Steap increase in fuel prices

The Rajasekhar Reddy (congress) government can cut Rs 2 per litre of petrol by cutting Value Added Tax (VAT), but has not done so despite the public outcry.

West Bengal has said it would cut VAT till the impact of Wednesday’s hike is neutralised. Maharashtra has also cut taxes.

But AP — which has cut tax on aviation fuel to 4 per cent tax against 33 per cent elsewhere — has not considered cutting VAT on petro fuels. It will profit by Rs 30 crore every month following Wednesday’s price hike. It is easy for the state to forgo the tax.

“These additional revenues are unexpected and were not incorporated in the budget estimates,” a senior revenue department official said.

AP levies 33 per cent VAT on petrol, the highest in the country, and 22.25 per cent on diesel, the second highest after Gujarat. The government earned Rs 18 on every litre of petrol at the old rate of Rs 51.40.