The Telugu World Column No- 47
Not Just Doctors, Drugs and Nature Cure Too
The longest column in this weekly series, spread over three parts, was on doctors of the Telugu states who distinguished themselves in the medical field nationally and the world over. Together they are No.1 in manufacture of medicines as well as treatment methods opposed to use of toxic chemical drugs. It is seen that in naturopathy too Telugu doctors were pioneers who helped make the Jindal Nature Cure Centre at Bangalore the country’s best. .They are pioneers in Ayurveda too. In the last few years the founder of ‘Firstdoctor.clinic’, Dr. Rajasekhar VS, (also a Telugu in Bangalore), has been championing the cause of nutrition therapy and treating many infectious and life style diseases using ‘Medical Nutrition’. In recent Covid crisis, he has treated 100’s of Covid Cases with zero medicine, zero mortality and zero cost, just at home within 3 to 7 days over ‘virtual OPD’ while most hospitals had no beds. More about him later.
It is not in just top doctors of various disciplines that the Telugu states leads. They are also the top hub of pharmaceutical industries of India. Leading among them is one of the few Indian MNCs and a major pharmaceutical industry of the country Dr Reddy’s Laboratories with its headquarters at Hyderabad, a unit in Germany and a R&D center in Bangalore. It was founded in 1984 by Dr. Kallam Anji Reddy who formerly headed the public sector Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL) a pioneer in the supply of bulk drugs to the industry. Most of Dr ReddyLabs medicines are approved by the Federal Drug Authority of the US and sold all over the world. Its manufacturing unit is in Hyderabad and research center in Bangalore.
Dr. Reddy Labs, with assets of nearly ₹24,000 crores and revenue of about ₹19,000 cr., has a subsidiary in Germany and has signed an agreement with Russia for clinical trials of its Coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V.
Another Corona vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech and Bio Therapeutics has introduced CoVaccine, which was the first in India to get clearance for use in emergencies. The Hyderabad company, which had acquired Chiron Behring, was started by Dr. Ella Krishna in 1996 in Delhi It also makes rotavirus, typhoid, hepatitis B, and diphtheria vaccines, and also has medical insurance. A pharma city like HiTec is coming up in Hyderabad as it accounts for nearly 40 per cent of national pharmaceutical production.
GVK is another leading Indian conglomerate with diversified interests across various sectors and claims to be providing reliable infrastructure that contributes to the nation’s growth and strengthens India’s position on the global map. Started in the year 2000, by Gunipudu Venkata Krishna reddy, it is a major player in the fields of power generation and transport (building roads to collect toll). It also runs ambulances and emergency relief services. It owned the Mumbai international airport but sold it to the Adanis.
With the interest taken by former CM Nara Chandrababu Naidu, Telangana’s Hyderabad emerged as next only to Bangalore as the seat of IT industry and has the Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy City (HiTec City) in Hyderabad but treated as Cyberabad district with its own Police Commissioner to be an Indian information technology, engineering, health informatics, and bioinformatics, financial business hub.
On a road journey from Bangalore to Hyderabad one sees a large number of poultry farms and the state is emerging as a major producer. Spices are another major produce. Mines and minerals, auto spares, horticulture and textiles are the other Telangana products. Of the state’s GDP 16 per cent is from agriculture but 55.6 % of the workforce lives on farming. Telangana’s annual revenue is ₹1.43 lakh crores and it ranks 7th in India in GDP. Andhra Pradesh ranks 8th with agriculture yielding ₹9.7 crores (farming 34%, industry 23% and services 43%). The percentage of people depending on agriculture is almost equal at 55. So in both the contribution of farming to the GDP is low while those depending on it are high—55 % of AP population farmers getting 34 % of GDP and 10 % of people being industrial workers who get 23% of GDP.
Andhra Pradesh’s Visakhapatnam has a major port and Hindustan Shipyard, a steel plant, public sector Dredging Corporation of India, an oil refinery, Bharat Heavy Plates & Vessels Limited. The state also has 44 state enterprises. The Tobacco Board is situated at Guntur as AP is the No,1 producer of tobacco in India.
Telangana has most of the central PSUs in the twin cities of Hyderabad/Secunderabad – Bharat Dynamics Ltd., Electronics Corporation Of India Ltd., Hindustan Fluorocarbons Ltd., HMT Bearings Ltd., National Mineral Development Corpn. Ltd., Mishra Dhatu Nigam Ltd., National Mineral Development Corpn. Ltd., Sponge Iron India Ltd., Engineers India Ltd. (now in Gurugram) and Praga Tools Limited (closed). The head office of the public sector Andhra Bank is also there and so was that of the State Bank of Hyderabad (now merged with SBI),Both the states are primarily agricultural states. When together they were known as the land of hardworking progressive farmers at the forefront in agricultural practices and rice cultivation. Andhra had, before the virus pandemic, the fastest growing economy in India (at 11.61%). The per capita income grew at the rate of 13.14% between20051 and 2016. Despite the craze for studying and working abroad, it is not a ‘money economy’ like Kerala with millions of Keralites working in the Gulf and other West Asian countries, but without the strong linguistic and cultural bonds of that state where all communities speak the same language and celebrate Onam festival together.
