Call it a windfall if you will, but the government of Andhra Pradesh signed MoUs worth Rs. 10.4 lakh crores with various companies at the two day CII Partnership Summit held in Visakhapatnam. These 665 MoUs with various companies will bring employment to 22.5 lakh people in the state. The state attracted investment proposals worth Rs 1.29 lakh crore for Amaravati also, the upcoming state capital, and the government signed 62 MoUs for various projects in the CRDA. An important occasion, there were delegates from 51 for the two-day event, which included six Union ministers.
Amid large scale criticism that the Andhra Pradesh chief minister N.Chandrababu Naidu merely wasted the state exchequer money at Davos, Switzerland without any MoUs signed, the above MoUs have come as a blessing. With certain parties also raising the Special Status issue, creating dissension within the people of Andhra Pradesh, the fact that these MoUs will bring several jobs with them is the good news.
Another windfall came in the form of an announcement when the Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari said at the same summit that two coastal economic zones will be created at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore as part of the Sagarmala project in Andhra Pradesh. While one zone would cover Srikakulam to Vijayawada, the other from Vijayawada to Nellore, will come under Visakhapatnam-Chennai industrial corridor. This project too would create a lot of employment. The minister went on to add that the Central government has decided to give the highest priority to waterways aimed at bringing down the cost of transportation. The project, which will cover 111 rivers in the country, will also develop National Waterway 4 or Buckingham Canal (1,095-km long), which will connect Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. These works will be started after the assembly elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
Sri City, situated in Nellore, is an integrated business city. Here too, 13 companies from various sectors signed MOUs with this SEZ to invest Rs 600 crore. With these agreements there will be 2,000 more jobs. Out of the 13 companies, two of them are from abroad, while the rest are India.