Green industrial park to be launched before year-end

Land for the 1,000-acre Green Industrial Park in Andhra Pradesh has been acquired, according to Parasuraman R, chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) - southern region.

A first-of-its-kind in the country, the industrial park will focus on areas like water management, energy conservation and recycling , which can help in safeguarding environmental resources.

The land has been acquired by the Andhra Pradesh government for the park which will be ready for formal launch before the year-end.

Addressing mediapersons, Parasuraman said, "The 1000-acre plot, in Mahbubnagar district has been acquired and the CII will be working on marketing it among industries. We, with the state government of Andhra Pradesh, will be formally launching the industrial park before the year-end."

Speaking on CII's work plan, Parasuraman said that the confederation is looking at providing skills training to 5,000 economically-challenged youth across the southern region to make them employable by April 2006. On a nationwide basis, the CII is targeting to train 10 lakh youth by 2010.

"We will be discussing with the state government here on the targets that they are looking at as part of our initiative towards skill training," he added. The training and certification have been entrusted to UK-based City & Guilds.

"In Andhra Pradesh, we have already trained 500 youth in Machilipatnam," Parasuraman said. The skills that the youth are being trained on range from electrical installation and plumbing to fashion designing and computer training.

"CII will also be taking up seven new SME cluster projects "" at Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Tamil Nadu "" by April 2006," he said, adding that the focus will be on enhancing the internal competitiveness of SMEs in terms of cost and energy management and manufacturing excellence. The confederation is also looking at upgrading 22 industrial training institutes (ITIs) across the southern region.

Some of CII's other initiatives during this financial year include sensitising 1.5 lakh workers across 150-member companies in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry on HIV and AIDS by March 2006.

"We are also looking at starting similar HIV AIDS industry intervention projects in Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh by September 2005, partnering with the respective state governments," Parasuraman said.