Amaravati vs Vizag: Which is the ideal IT hub?

VIJAYAWADA: The prospects of Amaravati emerging as a IT hub as a substitute to Visakhapatnam has triggered a heated debate with contrasting viewpoints post chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s discussions with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and his Google counterpart Sundar Pichai. In fact, recent developments are seen as a silver lining by IT professionals and industry bodies based in the capital city area.
G Prasanna Kumar, convener of NextGen, youth wing of the AP chamber of commerce and industry, observed, “There is every scope for Amaravati region to turn as a growth centre for IT as a viable alternative to Visakhapatnam”. He said the region is well connected to Bangalore and Chennai compared to Visakhapatnam by virtue of its location at the centre of AP. In addition, it would be within the reach for all those techies who hail from Guntur, Krishna, East and West Godavari districts.
Dasari Ramakrishna, a software professional heading Affronics in the city, saw a lot of hope for transformation of IT industry in the state in Naidu’s interactions with Satya and Sundar. “After all, Microsoft and Google are leading in preparing the IT world for an exciting journey from the traditional banking and financial services to internet optings. Satya Nadella’s assurance of cooperation regarding three proof of concepts (POC) to apply MS Mazur machine learning and advanced visualisation in the field of education, agriculture and e-citizen services is very good for the state”, he maintained. He said Satya’s talk in this direction would certainly propel the native IT industry to move in this direction.
P Krishna Prasad, a retired professor from Karamchedu in Prakasam district, however has a different take. He said Amaravati could never replace Visakhapatnam in the IT field due to its crippling land constraint and water shortage. Visakhapatnam has got a plenty of land and abundant water with an easy access to the airport with international travel facility on hand which is not the case with Amaravati, he contended.