Telangana will develop six industrial corridors along important national and state highways, the state government announced on Friday.
Initially, the government plans to develop Hyderabad-Warangal, Hyderabad-Nagpur and Hyderabad-Bengaluru industrial corridors.
Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma said in the second phase, industrial corridors will be developed along state highways from Hyderabad to Macherial, Nalgonda and Khammam.
The Hyderabad-Warangal corridor will be taken up on priority basis during the current financial year.
The announcement was made at the launch of state's new industrial policy by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao at a grand ceremony, attended by industrialists, CEOs of various companies and representatives of industry bodies.
The chief secretary also announced that the state will add 3,000 MW electricity during the current year to the existing capacity of 4,300 MW to get rid of the power problem. The state plans to add another 24,000 MW by 2018.
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) chairman and managing director B. Prasad Rao said BHEL was developing 6,000 MW projects in Telangana. By the end of current year, it will add 1,700 MW while another 1,000 MW will be commissioned next year.
The state government on the occasion launched new policy for solar power, aimed at adding at least 5,000 MW of solar power in next four years.
The chief secretary said the state was spending Rs.30,000 crore on Telangana Water Grid to ensuring drinking water supply to every house. Ten percent of the water under this grid will be allocated for industry.
He said the state has a huge land bank for industrial use. It has set aside 1.5 lakh acres of land for setting up new industrial units.
Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao said the state would set up industrial park with plug-n-play facilities.
He said pharma city and a pharma university would be developed to give further impetus to the pharma sector. The state accounts for one-third of pharma industry in the country. He said the state would take the responsibility of treating the effluents from pharma city.
The government has already identified 11,000 acres of land for pharma city at Mucherla in Ranga Reddy district, near Hyderabad.
Pointing out that the state is famous for information technology, the chief secretary said the time had come to diversify.
Life sciences, information technology and precision engineering are among 14 thrust areas and core sectors identified under the new policy.
Food processing, automobiles, textiles, plastic and polymers, FMCG, engineering and capital goods, gems and jewellery, waste management, renewable energy, mineral-based and wood-based industries and transportation are the other thrust areas.
Arvind Kumar, secretary, industries, said manufacturing in Telangana account for 27.9 percent of the GDP against the national average of 17 percent. It is among top three states in the country so far as contribution of manufacturing to GDP is concerned.
