Vizag to get 'world class' naval facility

VISAKHAPATNAM: With the promise of 'special category' status mired in assurances and inaction, residuary Andhra Pradesh's efforts to catch up with the other states began with a bang at the CII Partnership Summit 2016 here on Sunday with the Anil Ambani-led Reliance group signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the TDP regime to set up a world class naval facility off the coast of this port city.
Slated to come up at Rambilli, about 70 km south of Vizag, the naval facility will have an initial investment of Rs 5,000 crore.“This represents the single largest investment at one location anywhere in AP,“ the junior Ambani said while speaking at the inaugural session of the three-day summit that kicked off here. This was in the presence of AP chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, Union ministers Arun Jaitley , Nirmala Sitharaman, Ashok Gajapathi Raju, YS Chowdhary , Piyush Goyal and a host of industry captains from Adi Godrej of the Godrej Group to Baba Kalyani of Bharat Forge Ltd. Apollo Hospitals chairman Pratap Reddy and GMR group chief GM Rao were among the other industrialists present on the stage.
Reliance Defence, a unit of Reliance Infrastructure Ltd, plans to construct submarines and aircraft carriers as well as provide services including maintenance and repairs of ships at the Rambilli naval facility. Ambani said that India is way behind the US and China with regard to its naval fleet. As against the 72 submarines that the US has and 69 with China, India has a small fleet of only 17 subs, he added. “It is estimated that the Indian Navy will spend over Rs 3 lakh crore or nearly Rs 20,000 crore per year on acquisitions and fleet modernisation of submarines and aircraft carriers over the next 15 years, thus creating a huge pipeline of opportunity for the proposed world class naval facility at Rambilli,“ Ambani said.
On Day One of the summit, AP also signed two MoUs with Pune-based Bharat Forge Ltd.
The forging major is to set up an integrated auto component hub in Nellore at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore. The second MoU pertains to a multimodal unit for manufacturing and defence sectors in Anantapur. Union finance minister Arun Jaitley assured AP that his government will honour all the assurances including funds and tax incentives given by it and the previous UPA regime to the residuary state. “Of all the reasons why one should invest in AP, the two greatest assets are that the Telugu people have displayed high standards of entrepreneurship and that the state is led by a leader who has a proven track record of development,“ the minister said.
Giving credit to Naidu for creating Cyberabad, industry and commerce minister Sitharaman said the CM has a history of proving himself and predicted that AP will emerge as the engine of the country's growth.Naidu announced that the Centre has agreed to Visakhapatnam hosting next year's summit as well.
AP inks 32 MoUs
The AP government said it has signed 32 MoUs (memorandum of understanding) with different companies to attract an investment of Rs 1.95 lakh crore on Day One of the CII Partnership Summit on Sunday.
“Of these, investments for energy MoUs are 22, nine are for industry and one is for mining,“ CM Chandrababu Naidu told reporters.