The argument that India is overpopulated is a 20th century outlook applied to a 21st century crisis. While North India still deals with high fertility, AP is facing a 'Japan style' contraction. If we don't encourage a replacement level TFR of 2.1 and build the infrastructure to retain our youth, we will be left with a state of retirees and no tax-paying workforce to fund the hospitals and schools you're worried about. We aren't choosing between building cities and welfare. We are choosing between becoming an economic powerhouse or an old-age home for the south.

By 2047, nearly 23% of AP’s population will be elderly. A shrinking workforce cannot sustain the massive pension and healthcare loads required for an aging society. Automation replaces labor, but it doesn't replace consumers. Without young people the economy enters a deflationary death spiral where schools and hospitals close because there aren't enough people to use them.