States Current Affairs October 2026

Andhra Pradesh launched India's first rural housing pilot built with 3D concrete printing on 4 October 2026, covering 177 houses at Burripalem and Obulnayudupalem villages in Tenali mandal, Guntur district, under PMAY-Gramin 2.0. The technology partner is CSIR-Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee. The pilot costs Rs 13.93 crore excluding taxes, with Rs 9.44 crore from the Union Ministry of Rural Development and Rs 4.49 crore from the state. Each house is to be printed in about 10 days and the project finished within six months, with the state claiming greater durability than conventional rural housing.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced on 14 October, after a State Cabinet meeting, that 40 more talukas had been added by supplementary resolution, taking Maharashtra's drought-affected tally from the 265 declared in September 2026 to 305 of the State's 358 talukas - more than 85% of its area. Each affected farmer will get Rs 5,000 credited before Diwali, and all twelve standard drought concessions were extended, including free power for agricultural pumps up to 7.5 HP. Debt relief widens to 3.5 lakh more farmers, about 16,000 illegal water connections were disconnected, and Marathwada remains worst hit, with groundwater below three metres.

The Centre approved DRISHTI, a Rs 65 crore GIS-based property survey and documentation project to speed up conferment of property rights on residents of Delhi's unauthorised colonies under PM-UDAY. DRISHTI expands to Delhi Revenue and Imaging Survey, Spatial Technology Initiative. Funding splits Rs 52 crore (80%) from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs' Urban Development Fund and Rs 13 crore (20%) from the Delhi government's Revenue Department. It covers PM-UDAY cells across all 13 Delhi districts plus a unit at Revenue Department headquarters, with the central share released in four instalments, or in a single tranche if procurement runs through GeM.

ReNew Wind Energy Pvt. Ltd and the Government of Maharashtra signed an MoU for an integrated green data centre park in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region involving investment of about Rs 70,000 crore. The park will carry 750 MW of capacity spread across Panvel, Khalapur, Taloja and Bhokharpada, start operations in 2028, and draw 51% of its operational power from green sources. It is expected to generate over 7,000 jobs, including more than 2,000 direct ones. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Gurugram, ReNew adds to a Maharashtra digital push that already includes a Rs 10,520 crore BharatNet agreement for 28,237 gram panchayats.

The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, approved on 9 October 2026 renaming the greenfield Noida International Airport at Jewar, Gautam Buddha Nagar district as 'Narendra Modi International Airport, Noida-Jewar'. Phase I, built at about Rs 11,282 crore, has an initial capacity of 1.2 crore passengers a year, scalable to 7 crore, and a 3,900-metre runway able to take wide-body aircraft. The airport was developed under a public-private partnership through Yamuna International Airport Private Limited, a subsidiary of Zurich Airport International AG, with Noida International Airport Limited as the state nodal body, and was inaugurated in March 2026.

Odisha launched India's first dedicated incentive portal for MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) tourism, unveiled by Deputy Chief Minister and Tourism Minister Pravati Parida at the 7th Odisha Travel Bazaar 2026 in Bhubaneswar. Created under the Odisha Tourism (Amendment) Policy, 2026, it lets event organisers and tour operators apply online for state incentives of Rs 1,000 per room per day, subject to a minimum of 100 rooms per day booked in hotels rated three-star and above, with at least 50% of occupants from outside Odisha. The aim is to position the state as a corporate-events and business-tourism destination.

Telangana's nine-day floral festival Bathukamma concluded with Saddula Bathukamma, its final day, on 18 October 2026. Women stack seasonal flowers - chiefly tangedu (Cassia auriculata) and gunuka (Celosia) - in concentric layers into a cone, sing traditional songs, and then immerse the arrangements in local water bodies. The main procession began at 4 p.m. from the Martyrs' Memorial and moved to Tank Bund beside Hussain Sagar, where about 700 folk artistes performed Perini, Gusadi, Oggu Dolu and Dappu. Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy had unveiled a 72-foot floral Bathukamma at Amberpet on 17 October. The festival falls in Ashwayuja, coinciding with Navaratri.

The Mohanthal prasad offered at the Ambaji temple in Banaskantha district, Gujarat was granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tag on 8 October 2026, on an application filed on 1 October 2026 by the Shree Arasuri Ambaji Mata Devsthan Trust. The certificate was handed over at Chachar Chowk in Ambaji on 11 October 2026, the first day of Sharadiya Navratri, by Dr Unnat P. Pandit, Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks and Registrar of Geographical Indications. Registration under the GI of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 lasts 10 years and is renewable, following Jharkhand's Mandar drum tag in late September.

The Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology reported a black-and-red ware bowl carrying five graffiti signs in a left-to-right sequence from Thelunganur, in the Mettur dam water-spread area of Salem district — the longest such sequence recorded in the state. A second bowl bears the same five signs in a different order. Excavation director S. Paranthaman led the dig, while department adviser K. Rajan dates the marks to over 3,200 years, with Thelunganur and nearby Mangadu placed at 1600-1200 BCE. Rajan reports about 90% morphological similarity with Indus Valley marks, feeding the standing debate on whether graffiti bridge the Indus script and Tamil-Brahmi.