Andhra Pradesh infra running short of land

Hyderabad: The AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation does not have even seven per cent of land bank that it claims to have. The state government has been boasting that the APIIC has a land bank of 2.97 lakh acres. However, the industrial parks have only 20,460 acres of readily available land for immediate use. Around 84,000 acres are still under acquisition or alienation and 1.91 lakh acres have merely been identified.

Interestingly, in the last four years, the APIIC had not acquired even an acre of land in the capital region of Krishna and Guntur districts.

A senior official of the industries department said, “The state government has no money to acquire land. At present, acquisition is not easy. However, without land, setting up of industries is going to be a Herculean task.”

Districts like West Godavari have no land bank, while in the Krishna district it is minimal. Most of the lands identified are in Visakapatnam, Guntur, Kurnool and Krishna districts.

Officials say that land pooling is not possible in all places and alienation of forest land is going to be a real tough task. It is very difficult to get clearances from the ministry of forest and environment.