A visit to the beautiful state of Karnataka that I am privileged to represent in the Council of States — a land whose very name evokes images of lush green landscapes, waterfalls, ancient hills, verdant valleys, pristine rivers, and a history that stretches back millennia — is always invigorating. This visit was a journey through time, a study in contrasts, and a powerful reminder of our nation’s immense potential.

My first stop was the historical site of Hampi, located in the newly formed Vijayanagara district. The ruins of Hampi stirred in me both awe and melancholy. Once the magnificent capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, Hampi was described by the Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes, who visited around 1520–22 during Krishna Deva Raya’s reign as “the best provided city in the world”, of its capital as being “as large as Rome, and very beautiful to the sight,” a city “full of riches and precious stones... where they sell everything”.

From the magnificent desolate ruins of Hampi, I travelled into the Kalyana-Karnataka region, whose geography itself tells a story of extremes. Within Kalyana-Karnataka, the Krishna-Tungabhadra doab is a lush-green landscape with paddy fields, sugarcane and banana plantations breaking the monotony of the precariously perched red-brown granite boulders and further into the hinterlands lay the vast dry country, infamous for its droughts. Historically, most of Kalyana-Karnataka was part of the Hyderabad State (excluding the united Ballari district, earlier under Madras Presidency) and still bears the scars of the Nizam’s misrule. Kalaburagi, for instance, has the lowest per capita income in South India, and both of Karnataka’s aspirational districts — Yadgir and Raichur — belong to this region. Planning here must therefore be sensitive to stark local variations. This is where the government of India’s Aspirational Block Programme plays a crucial role, focusing not only on districts but also on sub-district and block-level disparities.

My MPLADS funds were leveraged to support farmers of the region by bringing agro-processing........

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