While income from agriculture per rural person was the same (about Rs. 7800) for the two regions in 1993-94, it rose steadily to Rs.11800 by the year 2007-08 in Andhra Region, while there was no such steady increase for Telangana and it rose to only around Rs. 10,000.

At the same time, agricultural labour increased from 38% to 47% of the population in Telangana but in Andhra, it increased only by 1%. This implies a greater agricultural distress and land selling by farmers in Telangana and the conversion of farmers into labourers. Due to drought, failure of crops and loss of livelihood among people between May 2004 and November 2005, Telangana reported 663 suicides out of 1068 reported in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Thus about sixty three percent of the distress suicides in the state took place in the Telangana region.

Even in the overall educational attainment, Telangana remained behind Coastal Andhra. The literacy rate in 2001 in Telangana was 53% but in Andhra it was 63%. During the same period, literacy rates were further less among the poor and socially deprived sections of Telangana. The total number of colleges in Telangana were 159 and if Hyderabad is excluded only 116 but in Andhra there were 181 colleges for the same number of youth. In a similar fashion, the grant for college education was about Rs. 93 crores in Telangana and it was Rs. 224 crores in Andhra.

In addition to uneven development, the people of Telangana also felt that they were being culturally discriminated against. After the merger, the language and culture of Coastal Andhra was promoted as the ideal language and culture and those of Telangana were treated as being backward. The history, culture and leaders of Telangana were not adequately represented in the school textbooks. The folk dieties and festivals of Telangana were being ignored while the festivals and Sanskritised cultural practices of the Coastal regions were given prominence. The films too depicted the people of Telangana as backward and crude.

Meanwhile, rich people from the Coastal Andhra and outside the state began investing in a big way in purchasing land in Telangana, especially in and around Hyderabad city. While this brought investment into the region, the local people did not benefit much from this development and were in fact losing control over their own land to real estate developers.

At the same time, the labourers and poor farmers of Telangana were facing increasing pressure of different kinds. On the one hand, the poor farmers of dry lands faced the limitations of agricultural production with little and depleting water resources. The artisans faced the problem of decline in demand for their produce and depletion of sources of raw materials like bamboo or wood. Many traditional service castes like washermen and nomadic communities too felt the pressure of declining demand for their services and loss of livelihood. While such problems