Andhra, K'taka to walk hand in hand towards development

Setting aside the water issues and moving away from the race of attracting investments, the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka today said that their respective states will develop together by helping each other in the areas of infrastructure and other sectors.

Despite the bonhomie, the two-day SUMINRA-2005, being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) that began here on Thursday, witnessed glimpses of a 'healthy competition', as both chief ministers Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and N Dharam Singh put it, with regard to the proposed international airports and outer ringroad projects at Hyderabad and Bangalore, among others.

While giving a detailed account of the important initiatives and projects being taken up in Karnataka, Dharam Singh said that within a short span of 14 months his government could approve projects with a total investment of Rs 51,645 crore and another 10 mega projects worth Rs 13,072 crore were under active consideration for approval.

An IT city project would be coming up in 1,100 acres on the four-lane road connecting to the new international airport, he said.

Besides inviting industrialists to invest in power, roads and in various SEZs, he also suggested to the investors to take up projects in the Gulbarga, Bidar and Raichur regions bordering Andhra Pradesh by taking advantage of the geographical affinity between Hyderabad and these areas.

Allaying fears of delay in clearing the infrastructure bottlenecks, Singh said that the metro rail project in Bangalore will go ahead despite certain issues pertaining to the alignment of routes which are being examined by the government.

He also refuted the charge that companies in IT and other sectors are turning away from Bangalore due to infrastructural problems.

"Investors' willingness to bring investments depends on the quality of state administration, support of government, law and order situation and transparent approval of investments," he said, adding that his government will ensure all those ingredients.

Referring to the Bangalore international airport achieving financial closure in June 2005, Andhra Pradesh chief minister announced that the financial closure for the Hyderabad international airport is scheduled to be concluded tomorrow.

"Well, if your airport project commences commercial operations in March 2008, we will also do it at the same time, perhaps with a day's gap," he said.

He also referred to the 8-lane 160-km outer ringroad project with 20 satellite towns proposed around Hyderabad and the knowledge corridor being planned to house IT, ITeS, banking and education sectors in 20,000 acres near the city.

Reddy also expressed his keenness on public-private-participation (PPP) in drinking water, waste water management, sectorwise infrastructure development to suit sectors such as apparel, pharma, agro-processing and auto clusters. He also invited PPPs in building integrated residential enclaves in Hyderabad, Tirupati and Warangal.

Besides holding plenary sessions on topics such as trends in infrastructure financing, experience in PPPs, infrastructure development, the CII has planned four separate sessions dedicating to investment opportunities in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala during the two-day summit.