AP CM hopes for Rs 1,79,000 crore industrial investments

Hyderabad, Feb 20 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekara Reddy today envisaged a massive Rs 1,79,000 crore industrial investments in the State to make it the foremost industrialised State in the country.

The Government with its proactive industrial policy was attracting a large number of industries both domestic and multi national to create over three lakh jobs in the manufacturing sector, he said while replying to the debate on the motion of thanks for the Governor's address.

The State would become power surplus once Reliance Industries would commence commercial production of gas from its oil fields in the Krishna Godavari basin within six months, as many of the gas based power stations had idle capacities due to shortage of gas, Dr Reddy said.

Referring to promotion of SEZs to attract large scale Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in different sectors, he envisaged an investment of Rs 60,000 in the power sector, Rs 35,000 crore in the petrochemical sector, Rs 10,900 crore in the textiles sector, Rs 4,650 crore in the automobile sector and Rs 675 crore in the biotechnology sectors.

While the Congress Government was making all out efforts to accelerate industrial growth, the previous TDP Government had not only failed to attract major investments into the State, but also sold a large number of cooperative sugar and spinning mills, he maintained.

The Congress Government envisaged development of major industrial clusters in and around Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Nellore and Anantapur, he said, adding that all the district headquarters would be provided airports, a university, four lane roads, super speciality hospitals in due course to step up industrial growth.

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