Andhra Pradesh to spend Rs18K crore to develop 3 ports, 9 fishing harbours

Visakhapatnam/Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Industries Minister Mekapati Goutham Reddy on Monday said the State Government is laying emphasis on strengthening the infrastructure to reduce the cost of logistics and declared that they are investing around Rs18,000 crore to develop greenfield ports at Bhavanapadu, Machilipatnam and Ramaiahpatnam and building nine fishing harbours to take advantage of the vast coastline.

He said under the dynamic leadership of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, AP is giving very high priority for improving the logistic network by investing heavily in the roads improvement, new and renewable energy, reaching fibernet connectivity to every gram panchayat, development of industrial nodes and connecting with good quality external infrastructure to improve the competitiveness and reduce the logistic costs.

He was addressing in virtual mode the southern zone conference on creating awareness on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Gati Shakti National Master Plan Master Plan (PM GS-NMP) by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) involving the stakeholders of infrastructure ministries of Government of India and and the State Governments. Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Minister of State for MoRTH and Civil aviation General (retd) VK Singh and representatives of various States participated.

In a tweet later, Reddy said he elaborated the opportunities for AP and challenges it has. "#Gatishakti plan to ensure that opportunities in #logistics field in AP shall be fine-tuned with seamless integration," he tweeted.

In his address, Goutham Reddy pointed out that they are "aligned to vision of our Chief Minister on maritime-led economy and eager to make AP one of the first States to embrace and deliver this vision to the people. We are working towards integrated logistics-based infra development which means port-led industrialisation with ultra-modern/ multi-purpose ports, road and rail based economic corridors having large industrial hubs, developing

fishing harbours and processing zones.

He said airports are a region's gateway into national and global opportunities for growth and prosperity. "We are ensuring that airports are well-connected to the road, rail and possibly sea connectivity via ports in close proximity to maximise their potential to become as multi-modal cargo hubs to drive industrial and economic development."

The Minister said that the State is expanding natural gas distribution network widely through the AP Gas Distribution Corporation (APGDC) formed with an objective to develop natural gas infrastructure in AP. "We are

implementing the Kakinada Srikakulam Pipe-Line (KSPL) project gas corridors in two phases. Phase 1 from Kakinada to Visakhapatnam (169 kms) and the Phase 2 is from Visakhapatnam to Srikakulam (102 kms)."

He stated that the Roads and Buildings Department has taken up works in upgrading all roads connecting mandal headquarters to district headquarters to two lane with a cost of Rs.6,400 crore with financial assistance from National Development Bank (NDB) to improve the movement of agriculture produce and the network to various production and consumption centres to facilitate economic activity.

The State is developing multiple industrial nodes along Vizag-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC), Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor and Hyderabad-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor by investing heavily in providing quality external infrastructure. In tune with the vision of the Chief Minister, the State is following a decentralised approach of giving maximum focus to local bodies by creating village secretariats in each of the gram panchayat and ward secretariats in municipalities, he stated.

Reddy pointed out that the State under the able leadership of Jagan Mohan Reddy is very keen to work in tandem with all the sixteen infrastructure ministries in Government of India to synergise the plans for improving the infrastructure and the ranking of Logistic Performance Index in the near future. He promised wholehearted cooperated on behalf of AP to make the dream of the Prime Minister in making India $5 trillion economy in the near future.