Andhra govt to review L&T contract

The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday said that it was ready to examine Larsen & Toubro's (L & T) maintenance contract for the Vizag industrial water project.

Responding to a query at the 'Meet-the-Press' programme organised by the Visakhapatnam Journalists' Forum here on Monday, chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said that the government would examine the issue in detail and take a final decision.

There has been a vociferous demand locally that L&T be divested of the responsibility of maintenance as most of the project's cost has been borne by public sector undertakings besides the Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation.

The chief minister said that in order to meet the industrial water requirements in the future, the government had decided to allot 25 tmc (thousand million cubic meters) of Godavari water to the Visa-khapatnam industries through the proposed Polavaram left canal. The government would grant administrative sanction for this project very shortly, he said.

The development works at the Gangavaram port and the Pharma City, which are coming up in the private sector, would start very soon, the chief minister said.

"We have already cleared all the hurdles to these two projects. The government will take all necessary steps to complete these two projects within time," he said.

Reddy said that Visakhapatnam was the right destination for the information technology sector in the state after Hyderabad.

"We have identified 100 acres of land in Visakhapatnam for IT units. We will allot this land to IT companies at very low price. In addition to this, the government will provide the required infrastructure facilities to IT units as in Hyderabad. Already several major IT firms are showing interest in setting up their units in Visakhapatnam," he added.