Naidu wants state to be IT hardware hub

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said his government would address reforms in four key areas - housing, health, education and labour. The chief minister said he wanted his state to emerge as a hardware manufacturing hub and not just a software hub.

Participating in a panel discussion after delivering the keynote address at the Business Standard Round Table Conference 2015 on 'Laying out a roadmap for making Andhra Pradesh an economic powerhouse' at Vijayawada on Monday, Naidu said housing was one of the growth engines for development and his government would tackle the issue in two ways.

"We are giving Rs 2.75 lakh for rural housing, while for the urban areas we are planning townships where we will give land and attract the best developers," Naidu said.

On the education front, Naidu said Andhra Pradesh would be developed as a knowledge hub. There are several new central institutes such as Indian Institute of Management and All-India Institute of Medical Sciences coming up in the state, while his government was looking at setting up sector-specific universities like sports, aqua, logistics and energy.

Tech Mahindra Chief Executive Officer CP Gurnani, who represented the IT sector, wanted the government to focus on development that would change the industry in 10 years.

"Andra Pradesh's vision statement has been the most balanced and inclusive vision statement that I have ever seen. The best way is not about recreating 1995 (when Naidu was the chief minister of the undivided state and was credited with creating Cyberabad) but creating an ecosystem where very many industries will flourish," said Gurnani. The next generation industries should be created, he added.

Raising concerns on the ease of doing business, Venkat Jasti, chief executive officer and managing director of Suven Life Sciences Limited, said though ambitions were high, things were not still in place and bureaucracy was not taking people into confidence.

"A lot of apathy is there, especially from political leaders. When things are in place, assurance should be "yes" or "no" and not "maybe later". We don't want to wait for long for something to happen. We need to know where we are headed," he said.

Jasti said Naidu should once again turn into a chief executive officer like in his earlier avatar.

Ramesh Loganathan, managing director (India) of Nasdaq-listed Progress Software Corporation, while praising the initiatives of the new government, especially for the IT services sector, said the mindset to think was missing.

Expressing concerns on the rote-based system of learning, Loganathan said, "We need a culture where we encourage people to think and come out with ideas." In response, Naidu said his government was working on creating an ecosystem where people would be encouraged to think out-of-the-box and do their best.

In a lighter vein on Jasti's request to don the role of the CEO again, the chief minister said the CEO tag lost him some votes and he would prefer being the chief minister this time first.

Calling for developing the ports sector in the state, Nagarjune Tadury, vice-president and head of ports (project management and urban infrastructure), GMR Group, said even though the state had the longest coastline in the country, it lagged west.

"If we have proper connectivity, north-south corridor and a dedicated railway corridor, we can corner a big share of container handling," he said. He also wanted a ship repair facility to boost the sector, to which Naidu responded positively.

B Sambamurthy, former director, Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology, suggested the state-level bankers' committees should be reviewed and an analytics division be introduced. He also called for protecting the savings of the poor.

Responding to the suggestions, Naidu said he wanted people to partner in development and help in making Andhra Pradesh the number one state in the country.