Sri City emerges as best for industries

Tirupati: Sri City, which has become one of the proud achievements of the nation, has completed a dynamic decade on Wednesday. The world class integrated business city that houses over 175 companies, including 45 MNCs from over 27 countries offers everything what a business need.

Spread in an area of 100 square km area in Chittoor district, it comprises a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), a Domestic Tariff Zone (DTZ), Free Trade Warehousing Zone (FTWZ) and an Electronic Manufacturing Cluster (EMC).

It is proximity to Chennai gives Sri City a competitive edge over other locations. After series of brainstorming sessions before establishing the Sri City, the founder and Managing Director Ravindra Sannareddy finally determined to develop an industrial hub in Andhra Pradesh.

Though several companies have adopted wait and see policy initially, he never looked back and struck to his decision to invest in creating wold class infrastructure and once the companies saw the infra was in place, they started to sign up.

Going in line with the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Make in AP’, the dream campaigns of Central and State governments, it emerged as one of the best manufacturing destinations giving fillip to creation of jobs and getting the economy on the fast track. It has also emerged as one of the key industrial destinations in the Sunrise state of AP.

The total investments in Sri City by various companies have reached about Rs 35,000 crore and the aggregated value of exports from Sri City units in the last seven years was around Rs 4,000 crores. The Sri City has presence of a global footprint industries, with interests in varied sectors like automotive, IT, ITES, BPO, engineering, logistics and warehousing, apparel and fashion, electronics/hardware, renewable energy, food and beverages, eco-friendly industries and others.

Global makers like Alstom (trains), Pals Plush(toys), Isuzu (cars), Mondelez (chocolates), PepsiCo (soft drinks), Kellogg’s (corn flakes), Lavazza (coffee), Kobelco (cranes), Foxconn (smartphones) and Colgate-Palmolive (tooth brushes) and some more have set up their units.

By housing more than 20 Japanese companies, most of them are in the automobile, engineering and logistics sectors, Sri City can be viewed as ‘mini Japan’. Significantly, before the advent of Sri City, there were hardly any industries in the area, which is located on the eastern part of the district. Now, with the industrial development about 35,000 persons have been employed both directly and indirectly.

According to an estimate, 45.62 per cent from Chittoor district are having livelihood here, 27.72 percent from Nellore district, 15.49 percent from other districts of AP and 11.17 percent from other states.

Sri City also engaged in developing human resources in the region as it found the need for providing skill development to the youth population there. Skill training initiatives are happening at three levels – developer, corporate and government and about 3,000 people have been trained so far. The Chennai based TVS group started a Skill Development Centre at the ITI campus in Tada.

Also, a Technical Skill Development Institute which waas set up in Sri City with the support of AP government and managed by M/s Siemens, offers free training to diploma and engineering students in computer applications, CNC machining, automobile engineering and in a host of other things. To get continuous supply of talent pool, Sri City also set up an employment bureau wherein a database of the job seekers is maintained.

It has been continuously striving to create a comprehensive impact on the society around it by focusing on quality education, better health services, social infrastructure and livelihood options, During its decade long journey, Sri City also bagged several prestigious awards including the Asia’s Most Admired Brand for 2017-18 and Indian Green Building Council’s (IGBC) prestigious Green City ‘Gold’ rating in recognition of its excellence at national level in 2017.

On completion of 10 years journey, Ravindra Sannareddy says, “In the first 10 years, we focused on creating industrial infrastructure. After achieving critical mass in terms of number of factories and people employed in them, we are now focusing on creation of world-class social infrastructure, led by residential development in a ‘walk to work’ environment, with an estimated potential of 50,000 housing units. From being a dry and arid zone where there was little or no farming, today this entire region is a fertile hub of growth and industry”.