Vizag, The Potential Growth Engine for Andhra Pradesh: CM Jagan at Vision Visakha Launch

Visakhapatnam, March 5: Unveiling the Vision Visakha plan for the next five years, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said the city needs to be developed as the growth engine that would contribute to all-round prosperity of the state in the coming years.

Addressing the seminar, attended by more than 2000 industrialists, at the Radisson Blue Hotel here on Tuesday, the Chief Minister reaffirmed his commitment to make Visakhapatnam the Administrative Capital.

Dwelling at length on the advantages the city has to become the Executive Capital, he said the opposition parties and groups, along with their friendly media, are opposing the idea of Visakhapatnam as the executive capital city for the simple reason that they have their interests elsewhere.

He said he is not against Amaravati being developed as the capital city but we need to spend around Rs.1 lakh crore over a period of 20 years pumping in Rs 5000 crore every year to build up the Capital-necessitated infrastructure in around 50,000 acres of virgin land.

Who knows, the estimates may go up and we may require spending around Rs. 5 or 10 lakh crore to construct our capital at Amaravati over a period of time, he said. Neglecting these facts, opposition media is shamelessly making a hue and cry indulging in land-grabbing allegations against us, he said, adding that they don’t want the Chief Minister to sit here as their interests lie in Amaravati.

However, this city has all the necessary infrastructure to be the administrative capital for the state and we need to give only final touches to the city and if he had vested interests, he would have spoken about Kadapa.

As Hyderabad has nearly 90 per cent of the PSUs, it grew at a faster pace but it has become the growth engine city for Telangana post-bifurcation. Our state can’t grow unless and until we have a similar growth engine city, he said.

Vizag has the perfect potential to become our growth engine for Andhra Pradesh, he said, adding it would become another city like Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore in another 10 years or so.

With the basic infrastructure of well-laid-out roads, port facilities, and some good structures, it is enough if we have an iconic Secretariat, a convention centre, and a sports stadium and the like that could attract the attention of people not only in India but across the world.

Listing out the advantages for Visakhapatnam, the Chief Minister said that apart from the city already being a port one, the Mulapeta Port and Bhogapuram International airport, along with the 6-lane express highway, would be ready for functioning in another 15 or 18 months, boosting up infrastructure.

That apart, the coming up of Adani Data Centre that facilitates laying of submarine cable from Singapore and 7-star hotels, resorts by Oberoi and Mayfair groups and NTPC Green Hydrogen projects will also contribute to the growth of the city, he said, adding that the Government has also been trying to have a balanced growth of manufacturing and services sectors across the state aiming decentralized growth.

With Andhra Pradesh basically being an agrarian state, we need to develop the other sectors also equally, he said, adding that Mulapet, Ramayapatnam, Machilipatnam, and Kakinada ports are being built at a rapid pace besides developing 10 fishing harbors and 6 fish land centers.

As the Government remained proactive to facilitate quick growth, the state was ranked first in the ease of doing business (EoDB) in the last three successive years, the Chief Minister said and stressed that 39 per cent 352 MoU signed at the Visakha GIS in March 2023 have been translated into reality.

Added to these efforts, the Government has also been relentlessly implementing a slew of welfare schemes in transparency catering to the social and economic empowerment of various social groups while handholding farmers and MSMEs at every stage, he said, adding that most of the women beneficiaries are turning into entrepreneurs and self-employed persons with the support of schemes like YSR Cheyuta.

Assuring the industrialists that the Government is committed to making Visakhapatnam the administrative capital and turn it into the most-needed growth engine for Andhra Pradesh, he said that everyone should think what is good for the next generation, how to enhance the revenues of the state and how our children will prosper.

“After the elections, my swearing-in ceremony as the Chief Minister would take place in Visakhapatnam and I will sit here in that capacity. We will prevail, we will survive, and we will bounce back,” he said.

Later, Special Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister Y. Sri Lakshmi submitted an AV presentation to the industrialists on how Visakhapatnam would be developed in different sectors over the next five years.