TCL to boost Tirupati as tech hub

Tirupati: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday performed ground-breaking ceremony for TCL’s first overseas smart integrated manufacturing industrial park at Vikruthamala village of Yerpedu mandal near Tirupati.

Efforts were on to make Tirupati a hardware and smartware hub. While Dixon, Celkon and other industries have already come up Reliance will be coming soon.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that TCL has been world’s third largest television brand and consumer electronics company which will be investing Rs 2,200 crore to establish their industry here. He expressed his desire to make Tirupati another Silicon City.

“When I asked TCL to launch the industry in nine months, they assured me to complete it in eight months only. It will be coming up in 158 acres and will provide employment opportunities to 6000 people,” he said.

“Within three months’ time, we have convinced them to invest in Tirupati,” the Chief Minister underlined. There were no industries at the airport area once, but now several electronics manufacturing industries are coming up there. Naidu said that by developing a Silicon City near airport, the government intends to bring investments of Rs 25,000 crore and provide employment opportunities to one lakh people.

Similarly, a silicon corridor will be developed connecting Nellore- Tirupati- Chennai to attract huge investments. The aim was to make the region the first choice of all industrialists across the globe. Already this region was having Sri City and the area was well connected by air, rail, road and another airport will soon come up at Nellore. The city will be transformed on par with reputed industrial park Shenzhen.

By establishing TCL integrated manufacturing project, Tirupati will be crossing a milestone in the economic and industrial development of Andhra Pradesh. “The intention is very clear. I want to make the State number one in the country by 2029 and best state in the world by 2050.

The target growth rate by 2020 will be 15 per cent and to achieve this, policies have been framed for IT, hardware, cybersecurity, industrial technology sectors. With 59 electronic industries in the state, one lakh people were employed among which Chittoor district gets a major share,” he maintained.

IT and Panchayat Raj Minister N Lokesh has said that the state has got several industries during the four years post bifurcation which shows the commitment of the government.

In mobile phone manufacturing in the country, AP’s share has been 30 per cent and 18,000 women were working with this sector. TCL has been operating in 160 markets in the world and having 28 R&D centres on its own along with 10 joint laboratories and 23 production units.

TCL Chairman and CEO Tomson Li revealed that TCL has been competing with Japan and Korea in global TV market and termed India as their strategic market. He promised quality products with great value and said that their company was at second place in US market.

He lauded the efforts of CM Naidu and Minister Lokesh by saying that with their cooperation only they could perform ground-breaking ceremony in a short time.

IT department Principal Secretary Vijayanand, Minister for Industries N Amarnath Reddy, MP G Jayadev, Collector PS Pradyumna, Joint Collector PS Girisha, MLCs G Sreenivasulu, BN Rajasimhulu, ZP Chairperson S Geervani, MLAs and other officials were present on the occasion.