The Andhra Pradesh Chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has, in its vision document titled ‘Andhra Pradesh @100 Transformation through Competitiveness, Sustainability, Trust & Globalization’, submitted to the political parties recently, recommended three policy ideas for the new government to be formed after June 4 to boost growth in the State.
The ideas are to use a composite fiscal performance index to measure the quality of government budgets instead of the fiscal deficit to GDP ratio, introduce the concept of regional regulators for the power sector to give them independence from the State influence as well as to ensure uniform practices across the region, and to adopt an integrated value chain approach to promote manufacturing in capital goods, textiles and electronics sectors to start with.
Besides, for the sake of fiscal prudence, the industry body recommended the setting up of the State Finance Commission and an institution on the lines of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission in China for supervising the restructuring of unproductive assets and effectively dealing with brownfield projects that have private investors’ interest, and announcement of a comprehensive State Employment Policy with emphasis on promoting employment - intensive mass manufacturing and services sectors and affordable housing.
Cluster cultivation policy
As far as the agriculture sector is concerned, the CII suggested the implementation of a cluster-based approach for promoting food processing in different regions on the basis of the availability of raw materials, market demand and local preferences, drafting of a comprehensive Food Processing Policy, empowerment and strengthening of A.P. State Food Processing Society and bringing about an improvement in the farmers’ incomes through a cluster cultivation policy.
To improve the Ease-of-Doing-Business (EoDB), the CII said an EoDB Board should be set up under the leadership of a senior bureaucrat, and the regulatory procedures should be streamlined and simplified and the grant of business approvals expedited.
The CII also recommended the development of IT and ITES clusters in Visakhapatnam, Anantapur and Tirupati, making more investments in renewable energy projects and encouraging clean technology development and focus to be laid on healthcare and life sciences, pharma and biotechnology and export promotion and market access.
