AP aiming at new industries with upto Rs 25,000 cr investment each year

The state's industries department thinks the single desk facility that was recently introduced would help in getting the projects off the ground quickly

The Andhra Pradesh industries department is aiming to create an investment pipeline that ensures new units with Rs 20,000-25,000 crore investment go into production every year in the state.

“Our goal is to ensure Rs 20,000-25,000 crore investment reaches the production stage each year beginning this fiscal. To achieve this, we plan to increase the investment pipeline by attracting more proposals and also try and improve the conversion rate at each stage right from enquiries to MoUs and further to clearances and to land acquisition stage etc,” a senior industry department official told Business Standard.

The industries department thinks the single desk (single point clearances for industries) facility, recently introduced by the government, would help in fasttracking the process to take the new proposals to their logical conclusion quickly. The department also plans to hold  investment summits and interactive sessions with potential investors in a bid to attract more proposals from domestic as well as overseas investors.

The department has been tracking 267 large investment proposals with a combined investment of Rs 1.47 lakh crore since last year. These proposals are expected to create a potential for 252,000 jobs in the state.

Of this, 56 units with a total investment of Rs 7,176 crore and about 30,000 new jobs had gone into production in a little over one year after chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu became AP chief minister in June, 2014, according to data of stage-wise status of each of these proposals compiled by the department.

Currently, 18 units with a combined investment of Rs 15,904 crore have entered trial production while 15 units with a total investment of Rs 6,073 crore have completed machinery erection, according to data. The department expects that new units with a combined investment of  Rs 22,000 crore to Rs 24,000 crore would go into production by the end of March, 2016.

Agro and food processing, pharmaceuticals, construction materials,  garments and textiles and chemicals sectors account for most of the new investment proposals though certain large size investments also come from automobile and aviation and defence sectors.  

These investments also include the Rs 18,000-crore brownfield expansion project proposed by HPCL at its existing refinery in Visakhapatnam. “The company is ready to start work as soon as it gets the environmental clearances,” the official said.

Most of the investments, either in production stage or at an advanced stage of implementation, come from the domestic investors while a large number of foreign investment proposals are still in the pipeline, according to the official.