Approval of the recently proposed integrated township policy by the state government has made way for the decongestion of Hyderabad and paved the path for the growth of the IT sector in the region, particularly in the northern and eastern parts. The announcement was made by Industries, IT, and Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao on Wednesday. Rao stated that the policy had been undertaken to encourage real estate development beyond the Outer Ring Road (ORR). With a view to improve balanced development, the policy intends to ease congestion in the core city of Hyderabad primarily by incentivising realtors to set up a greater number of satellite townships. The Minister who is in the city for the inauguration of Knight Frank India’s new office further added that one of the foremost objectives behind implementing the integrated township policy is to foster the philosophy of “Live, Work, Learn and Play” self-contained townships that aim to drastically reduce traveling to the city. Following Cabinet approval, post which he had signed the policy on Tuesday, the Minister also said that the salient features of the policy will be made public knowledge shortly. The mention of the policy came in the light of the Minister highlighting other pertinent measures aimed at developing new roads and flyovers such as the strategic road development. Additionally, he also underlined Hyderabad’s booming prospectivity in terms of investment of infrastructure, citing developments such as the setting up of the metro rail network and the proposed elevated bus corridor from Kukatpally to Western Hyderabad to corroborate his statement. While stating the expansion of the metro rail network, the Minister further added that the plight of crumbling infrastructure under the aggression of rapid urbanisation is a major challenge that plagues most cities in the country. Highlighting the need for good public transportation in large cities and self-contained suburban townships, the Minister vocalised the government’s desire to achieve this very same objective for Hyderabad via the integrated township policy. Keeping in mind the flourishing IT hub in the western parts of the city, he further said that among the primary objectives to decongest the city was a vision of encouraging the growth of the IT sector in the eastern and northern parts of Hyderabad. Since the formation of Telangana in 2014, Hyderabad’s IT exports have more than doubled from Rs 56,000 crore to Rs 128,000 crore. Ranked second in the country in terms of office space absorption, the move and measures to decongest the city assume added significance with respect to these contexts. The state’s policies continue to attract not only IT collaborators but also shareholders from the fields of aerospace, defence, life sciences, textiles, logistics as well as food processing sectors. Citing the fact that the city is responsible for the manufacture of one-third of vaccines across the globe, the Minister stated that Hyderabad is poised to play a pivotal role at the time of development of the Covid-19 vaccine as well.