This apart, five more clusters would come up at Trichy (wielding and allied branches) , Bangalore (heavy engineering), Chennai (automotives), Hosur (automotives) and Kochi (agri-based) during the current year.

At a press conference here on Friday, Reddy said the CII would work on the theme of developing people for accelerated and inclusive growth. In a bid to enhance the employment potential, the CII would provide pre-employment training to 50,000 school drop-outs including 5,000 youth in Andhra Pradesh.

It would also promote entrepreneurship among youth through a public-private partnership under its grassroot level skill development initiative apart from upgrading 24 industrial training institutes into centres of excellence.

Skill development is a priority as about 10 million skilled manpower are needed annually. The industry body is also preparing ‘Blue Book', a business operation manual for sustaining the ITIs. Besides, it is working on linkages between the manufacturing and engineering services, mechanisation of farm practices and promoting rural business hubs through farmer-industry partnerships. Focus would also be on making SMEs more competent.

The CII is working on developing a Mysore-Bangalore-Chennai industrial corridor on the lines of Delhi-Mumbai corridor. It would also focus on bringing power reforms in the southern states and on consolidating goods and service tax (GST) by 2010.

Modular employment training would be offered to 10,000 rural youth in automotive repair, electricals, hospitality, air conditioning, construction, retail and others, said CII Andhra Pradesh chairman Utpal Sen Gupta.

A common minimum economic agenda for political parties and a disaster management policy for Andhra Pradesh have also been proposed.