Andhra Pradesh excelled in attracting investments and achieving double-digit growth despite discrimination by the Centre, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said here on Tuesday, intervening in a short discussion on “Investments, industrial development and Employment Generation,” in the Assembly.
Citing an example, he said the Union government had arranged a loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the development of the Visakhapatnam-Chennai and Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial corridors but had doled out direct grants for the development of the New Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.
Mr. Naidu said agriculture had contributed more to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Andhra Pradesh than any other State — 34.5 % compared to the 11% to 12% of States like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The State achieved 11.2 % GDP growth in the last financial year.
Expressing surprise at the BJP leadership declaring that it was preparing to go to “war” with Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Naidu asked why it was harbouring so much grudge against it. “We have not asked for anything undue. We are asking for only what is due Constitutionally,” he said and added that going to war would result in a loss to all but mostly to the BJP.
Investments
Mr. Naidu said a lot of hard work had to be done to attract investments. The omissions and commissions of the previous government created fear among the investors. Even those interested in investing were driven away, he said citing Volkswagen as an example. If Volkswagen set up a factory, the State would have developed as the primary automobile hub in the country, he said.
In these four years, Andhra Pradesh signed 2,536 MoUs with an investment of ₹18,55,000 crore and generation of 44,28,778 jobs. A count of the companies that had already started functioning and those at an advanced stage would reveal that 11 lakh jobs were generated. Details of every company and the name of every candidate hired would be put online for transparency, he said.\
