Naidu vrooms with budget ignition

Hyderabad: More than the projects, Chandrababu Naidu now draws up major strength from the Modi’s maiden union budget. It raises high hopes on the proposed industrial spectrum of residuary Andhra Pradesh. It also seconds the AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s vision in setting up more medium to major ports across the 900 and odd kilometers of Andhra coastline.

Interestingly, the budget has announced AP's Kakinada region to be manufacturing hub for electronic and hardware components, which falls on the Chennai-Visakhapatnam Industrial Corridor announced earlier. Kakinada is a business centre and holds India's biggest natural gas reserve in the Krishna-Godavari Basin.
Also the Finance Minister has announced development of Krishnapatnam, a port town, in Nellore district as an industrial smart city, which is on the second corridor announced by the Centre, Chennai-Bangalore corridor. Besides Nellore district, this corridor would pass through two of Rayalaseema districts in AP.

The central government has announced the usage of the ports all along the Chennai-Visakhapatnam Industrial corridor, and announcement of hardware hub in Kakinada is considered as a boon for the growth of the hardware and software industry in the state.

However, the proposal needs to be quickly addressed by the Andhra Pradesh government and utilise to attract global majors into the shipping, port and computer related activity.

It is understood from the state officials, the popular search-engine company, Google, is already looking for space in the state and even willing to set up a major development centre, besides it may even invest in the hardware development activity.

In fact, after bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, the centre has announced Chennai-Visakhapatnam industrial corridor and promised to link all the erstwhile ports to the corridor by improving the quality of infrastructure, thus it would enhance the viability of the industries expected to be set up along the coast.

The state has decent port facilities on the coastline covering Visakhapatnam, Kalingapatnam, Machilipatnam, Kakinada, Dugarajapatnam and Ramayapatnam. Excepting Visakhapatnam all others are minor ports that have enough capacity and facilities to transform quickly as major ports. In order to strengthen the expected shipping activity along the coast, the AP Chief Minister had sought from the centre to set up a ‘maritime board’ in Visakhaptanam, which would ensure to develop vibrant ports on the country’s east coast, say officials.

For instance, the official reveals that the Centre has already proposed to develop Dugarajapatnam in AP as one of the new generation major port with an estimated cost of about Rs 8,000 crore. And he said that other ports also will get enough support from the government depending on the need as it proposed to develop marine transport facility to bring down the cost of goods transport.

Apart from marine and software sectors, the AP government is also planning to set up gas pipelines, gas grid, power transmission lines, and fuel supply track in all the industrial towns across the industrial corridor besides setting up of new industrial hubs and special economic zones (SEZs) in the region. Thus making the corridor a vibrant industrial option for global industrial majors and minors to set up their shops with much ease, says an official who is engaged with the project.

Interestingly, the state is attracting foreign funding agencies like ADB, DIPP, who are conducting investment and opportunity studies. Very recently, Asian Development Bank (ADB) did a preliminary study at Visakhapatnam and Gangavarm port to understanding the cargo handling infrastructure and future projections. They are considering financing in the port’s proposed cargo handling facilities and expansion plans.

The officials from funding agencies have also visited the AP State Special Economic Zone, Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City and AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, as part of familiarisation programme.