AP to generate large employment opportunities: CM

Hyderabad, Apr 10 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy today said employment opportunities would be created with many multinational and private companies choosing Andhra Pradesh to set up their units.

Replying to a debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor's address, he said 25,000 people, mostly women, would be employed by 'Apache' and 40,000 to 60,000 by Brandix, coming up in Visakhapatnam.

He said the ICICI Bank had asked for land to set up their southern headquarters in Hyderabad, where 25,000 persons would be employed.

He said a Science City would be coming up in Anantapur district.

Referring to criticism by the Opposition that the government was bowing down to conditions put forward by the World Bank, Dr Reddy said though the World Bank was against providing free power to the farmers the government had implemented it.

If any condition was against the interests of people, it would not be accepted by the government.

Regarding Ms Jayati Ghosh's recommendations to contain farmers' suicides, the Chief Minister said of the 170 recommendations, 140 had been already implemented.

He said Ms Jayati Ghosh and Dr M S Swaminathan had appreciated the efforts taken by the state government to resolve the farmers' problems.

On the power front, the Chief Minister said if the ongoing projects were completed, Andhra Pradesh would be a power surplus state in two years.

The government was mulling to set up coal-based power projects to produce power at a very low cost, he added.

UNI