Asian Development Bank urged to expedite release of funds for VCIC

Vijayawada: Chief Secretary Dinesh Kumar in a meeting with the officials of Asian Development Bank (ADB) at the Secretariat in Amaravati on Thursday appealed to them to expedite release of funds for the Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC). 

He said that infrastructure work is being expedited at the proposed four clusters in the VCIC. ADB vice-president Wencai Zhang said that the ADB team is visiting the region to personally assess the progress of the VCIC during their two-day tour. He told the Chief Secretary that ADB was ready to expedite the assistance for early completion of the VCIC.

Earlier, the team of ADB and the State government officials discussed the progress on the work of VCIC. The Asian Development Bank is extending a loan of Rs 5,544 crore for the Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC). It has been proposed to construct four industrial cluster nodes at Visakhapatnam, Machilipatnam, Donakonda and Srikalahasti-Yerpedu.

As part of the first phase, infrastructure is being readied to establish industrial clusters at Visakhapatnam and Srikalahasti-Yerpedu. The ADB had already released Rs 537 crore and the government officials are providing power and water supply to the clusters, the officials said.

State Industries department Secretary Solomon Arokyaraj, Industries Commissioner Siddhartha Jain, ADB country director Kenichi Yokoyama, ADB other representatives Chen Chen, Akira Matskunaga, Pushkar Srivastav, Kavita Iyengar, Rajesh Kumar Dell and the officials of State industries department were present.