Seemandhra economy set for huge strides

Swati Bharadwaj Chand, TNN | Jul 31, 2013, 06.10 AM IST

HYDERABAD: A blessing in disguise, that's what the split promises to be for Seemandhra. With the growth of coastal Andhra Pradesh and many of its top cities like Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada long stymied, thanks to the overwhelming preoccupation of those in power with Hyderabad, many feel that the region will finally come into its own as an economic powerhouse.

After all, the region is gateway to the state, blessed as it is with India's second longest coastline of around 1000 km that is dotted with several ports. While Vizag already has a major port Visakhpatnam Port Trust and minor port Gangavaram and Nellore has Krishnapatnam port. This even as scores of ports in Kakinada SEZ, Machilipatnam in Krishna district, Bheemunipatnam and Nakkapalli in Vizag district, Meghavaram, Kalingapatnam and Bhavanapadu port in Srikakulam as well as Narsapur in Godavari are in the works.

Already, in the past four to five years several industrialists hailing from coastal Andhra have been pumping their investments into the region, especially in the manufacturing sectors like pharma, chemicals and petrochemicals and the like.

"The next 20 years signal tremendous growth for Seemandhra. It will be a golden period as Andhra will finally be liberated from the clutches of Hyderabad, where all the investment was being made. The split will see a lot of growth centres springing up along the coastline like Visakhapatnam, which has already been rated among one of the fastest growing cities in India, Vijayawada, Nellore and Anantapur," points out former Confederation of Indian Industry, AP Council, chairman Y Harish Chandra Prasad.

What the region also has going in its favour are proposed blockbuster projects like the 140-km long Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) straddling Vizag and Kakinada. This project has already been acknowledged as the growth engine of Andhra Pradesh, with a Knight Frank report projecting the petroleum sector as the leading light of Andhra Pradesh, fuelling the state's petroleum output to Rs 2.07 lakh crore by 2015-16 from Rs 59,400 crore in 2010-11.

Most of the proposed mega power projects like Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd's 10,000 mw project at Kovada in Srikakulam or the 4,000 mw power project at Krishnapa.

Excerpt from: The Times of India