Youth look to minister Srinivas for revival of industries

Vizianagaram: The youth with certain skills and education are hoping to get a good employment under the NDA government as they feel that they have been ignored by the previous YSRCP government and could not get any jobs in the past five years.

Vizianagaram being a backward area in all aspects, youth migrate to distant places like Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Chennai in search of employment. Once the district was the hub for jute industries, vitrified clay tiles used for roofing. But now the jute sector has completely collapsed and many units like AP Fiber, Aruna Jute Mills, Uma Jute Mills have been closed down. Bheemasingi cooperative sugar factory in Jami mandal also was closed down.

Former CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy assured during his padayatra to revive the sugar unit if he comes to power but it was not done. Now the unemployment is the major social issue here.

People, particularly youth, are looking at Kondapalli Srinivas, minister for MSME sector hoping that he would concentrate on establishment of micro, small medium enterprises, which would provide some job opportunities here.

In fact, an industrial grown centre was initiated in Bobbili in this district during NT Rama Rao rule in 1994 aiming to encourage small, medium industries and to provide jobs to local youth. For this, the government under APIIC had acquired around 1,400 acre land at Bobbili and developed the entire land into an industrial park with roads, water, electric power and divided the land into small parcels to interested small and medium entrepreneurs.

Around 120 small units were established there and hundreds of local workers got employment. But due to lack of support from the governments and some other issues, around 60 units were shut down and hundreds lost their jobs, forcing local youth to migrate to Hyderabad in search of jobs. Now the youth are again looking towards minister Kondapalli Srinivas for revival of small and medium units in the district. They are hoping that the new minister will support the MSME segment and bring new units here and provide jobs to local workforce.

K Ramesh Kumar, an engineering graduate from Vizianagaram, says if the government supports the new investors and attract the units, they will get jobs and their lives also would be better than the previous days.

“The government should provide handholding to the small entrepreneurs till they stand on their own feet and to operate their units. If it happened, the industries will definitely run without any interruption and the youth will get jobs and wealth also will be created,” he said.