Split may spell doom for growth

Rajahmundry: Industrial growth and development may be badly affected in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions for the want of adequate infrastructure like power, land, investments and other issues in case the state is bifurcated to set up Telangana state.

At present, nearly 4,316 large, medium and small scale industrial units are existing in the state in the private sector with annual investments worth about Rs 1.26 lakh crores and nearly 30 lakh workers are engaged to work in these units.

Out of the total number of industrial units, majority of them are located in Telangana region including Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy and Medak districts for the reason that the area has well established infrastructure.

Industrial experts maintain that Aurobindo Pharma, Dr Reddy's Laboratories and others set up in north Andhra region are facing a series of problems like power crisis and discharge of industrial effluents.

Though these firms are releasing the effluents conveniently into the sea, marine life is getting affected under its impact. A bulk drugs manufacturing unit set up at Perawada in Visakhapatnam district is facing a bunch of problems, besides handling its effluents.

In coastal region, mainly agri-based industries are set up given the availability of raw material and industries dealing with sugar, cotton and textiles and others. They are already facing all hardships in running the units.

Experts feel that such medium and small scale industrial units would not contribute to the development of the region.

Major industries dealing with automobiles, engineering industries which play a major share in industrial sector, bulk drugs manufacturing units and others have to be set up if one wants to witness rapid development of the region.

In the post-bifurcation scenario, there may not be ambient atmosphere to attract huge investments from the industrial houses to set up their firms in the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh for the reason that the region lacks adequate infrastructure to set up units immediately.

The experts maintain that even if there is a firm commitment on the part of new government to create such atmosphere, it takes nearly 10 to 20 years to develop the requisite infrastructure and facilitate setting up more number of major and medium industrial units.

Moreover, the industrialists may find it difficult to acquire land as the coastal region has fertile land. Labour issues may also crop up as a large number of workers are settled down in and around state capital for three generations and it might be difficult for them to get back to their native places.

Even when the state remains united, development of industrial units at Kakinada special economic zone where thousands of acres of fertile lands were acquired from the farmers, is still a far cry for varied reasons.

Federation of Andhra Pradesh Industries state president B.V. Rama Rao said, “Bifurcation of state spells industrial doom in the entire state and especially in residuary state as no major industrial houses will come forward to invest money for setting major units for want of infrastructure and political stability. They might even prefer other states which had stable government. Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy's promise of getting more than Rs 1 lakh crore investments remained unfulfilled due to prevailing political uncertainty in the state.”