Investments worth Rs 3 lk crore for Andhra

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Sunday cleared investments worth Rs 25,672.40 crore (as compared with Rs 37,993 crore in major industries in the last seven years) at the State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB) meeting held on February 23.

The chief minister cleared 25 units with an employment potential of 41, 406, which will bring revenues to the state government through value-added tax (VAT) to the tune of Rs 878.30 crore annually.

Investments worth Rs 3,07,178 crore are either under implementation or in the pipeline. These include Bharat Dynamics Limited’s units at Anantapur for manufacturing missiles, NTPC-BHEL power plant equipment project at Mannavaram, Srikalahasthi (for which the prime minister had laid the foundation stone recently), and Bharat Electronics Limited at Anantapur, according to a government press release on Sunday.

The one-day (Sunday – February 27, 2011) investment clearance of Rs 25,672 crore is compared with a total of Rs 37,993 crore investment in major and medium industries from 2004 and 2011. However, there was also an investment of Rs 13,105 crore in small-scale and tiny industries during this period, thus a total of Rs 51,1098 crore.

The average investment between 2000 and 2004 was a mere Rs 37,036 crore in major and medium industries and  between 1999 and 2000 was only Rs 11,058 crore, the release said.

The new industries cleared by the SIPB were in the categories of food and agro (five units), automobile (three), cement (seven), steel and ferro alloys (five and one each of mineral-sand, chemical, ceramics and tyres spread over 14 districts. The state is expected to get a total VAT of Rs 878  crore. The chief minister also ordered that the incentives due (reimbursements of VAT, etc) to the new units should be cleared at the earliest, the release added.