AP urges fast development of 10 ports, 9 shipping harbours'

New Delhi: Minister for Industries and Commerce Gudivada Amarnath told the media here on Friday that the State government had urged the Centre for speedier development of the 10 ports and nine shipping harbours of the State.

The Minister attended the National Sagarmala Apex Committee meeting at Vigyan Bhavan earlier on Friday.

Amarnath said AP was keen to develop development centres at every 50 km interval of the coastal area and as a part of this the Visakhapatnam-Chennai, Bengaluru-Chennai and Bengaluru-Hyderabad Industrial Corridors were being prioritised by the State government. All requirements like the land allocations etc., were being met without delay, he said.

He said Visakhapatnam and Anantapur would soon have multi-model logistics parks and Kopparthi in Kadapa and Kakinada logistical parks too needed Centre's support.

He said GAIL and HPCL were willing to spend Rs 55,000 crore in the Visakhapatnam-Kakinada Petro Chemical Corridor and port-airport-road-rail connectivity was being improved in the State. He said Bhogapuram Airport came up for discussion at the meeting.

Among the 34 projects proposed under Sagarmala for AP, Ramayapatnam, Bhavanapadu and Machilipatnam ports development was also included. He said cold storage facilities to help fishermen were another priority of the State and skill development projects were being initiated too.