Andhra govt to focus on manufacturing

Even as the Andhra Pradesh government is getting ready to induct Cabinet ministers on May 25, its think-tank is busy drawing blueprints to give a push to manufacturing and heavy engineering sectors, which have been the weak links in the state's economy.

Speaking to Business Standard, a senior official said special incentives would be offered to attract manufacturing units to the state. “We expected the manufacturing sector would take off with Volkswagen and Tata Nano setting up their manufacturing plants here. But both did not materialise,” he said, adding the government would be careful in dealing with such projects in future.

Manufacturing apart, the government would provide emphasis on food processing and vegetable cultivation for the export market. It would also bring in irradiation and other technologies to the state to increase the shelf life of fruits of vegetables. “We have seen a technology in the US, which enables fruits to stay as they are for a month without having to use the cold storage or any preservatives,” he said about the pilots going on.

Also, the government would take up skill building and training programmes on a large scale. Though a beginning has been with the Rajiv Udyogasri scheme to provide training to the youth from rural areas, it did not yield the desired results. The objective was to create one million jobs for youth. “We would soon launch a set of studies to identify the areas where skill development training is needed,” the official said.

The government would align with the industries to know the actual demand-supply position on a continuous basis.

To improve the rural economy, it would also work to enhance the dairy and livestock production. “There is no burden on the officialdom to plan new schemes.”

The official said the focus of the government was on delivering the existing schemes better for increasing the per capita income, which was around Rs 34,057.

The state has set a food grain production target of 20.718 million tonne for the year 2009-10. About 100,000 acre would be brought under horticulture afresh. Drip and sprinkler irrigation would be introduced on about 375,000 acre and oil palm would be raised on about 75,000 acre. A bulk of the cement companies would double their capacity this year, he said.

Among others, the stress would be on expediting works on various power projects that would add about 15,000 Mw to the state’s installed capacity of 12,400 Mw in five years.