Exuding confidence that he would win the upcoming Assembly elections in the State with a handsome margin, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy said on March 5 that he would make Visakhapatnam his home and stay in the city, and went ahead to say that he would conduct his swearing-in ceremony after the elections in the city.
Speaking at the investor meet, ‘Vision Visakha’, at a star hotel here, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said that the city would become the Executive capital of the State. It would be the economic growth engine of the State, he added.
“The opposition parties and a section of the media are claiming that I have vested interests in Visakhapatnam. If that is the case, I would have vested interests in Kapada, my home district, and not Visakhapatnam,” he said.
“This city has the potential to become a global destination. It has all the trappings of becoming a mega metropolis. But if the vision is ‘negative’, then growth cannot take place. I am the only person pitching to make Visakhapatnam a mega city by converting it into the Executive capital,” Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said.
“But the Opposition is putting spokes in all my efforts,” he alleged.
“It is the opposition party leaders who have vested interests in developing Amaravati into a greenfield capital. They procured thousands of acres of land in Amaravati at cheaper rates even before declaring it the capital with an intention of making money out of real estate business,” the Chief Minister alleged.
“Amaravati is a virgin land, and it will take over ₹1 lakh crore just to develop basic infrastructure over the next 20 years. On the other hand, Visakhapatnam is already a developed city,” he said.
Talking about his plans for the city, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said, “I will build an iconic secretariat and an iconic convention centre. The infrastructure that I propose for this city will attract eyeballs from the global arena.”
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy pointed out that the upcoming international airport at Bhogapuram would be a game-changer. The six-lane beach corridor connecting the Visakhapatnam port with Bhogapuram would spur rapid growth, he said.
“The Visakhapatnam-Bhogapuram-Mulapeta stretch (a new port is coming up at Mulapeta) will act as a horizontal growth corridor, and the entire region from Visakhapatnam to Srikakulam will develop. This apart, the Adani group is investing about ₹27,000 crore on setting up a data centre in Visakhapatnam. This will change the economic fabric of this region,” he said.
On the hospitality side, hoteliers such as Oberoi and Mayfair would set up resorts and hotels in the next couple of years, and the NTPC’s hydrogen project would enhance the image of Visakhapatnam in the global economic market, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said.
“I do not believe in the number game, and it is an assurance from my side that Vizag Metro Rail and Hyderabad-Vizag and Vijayawada-Bengaluru high-speed rail corridor will become a reality soon. Ten years from now, Visakhapatnam will compete with the top cities in the world,” he said, and proposed an investment of ₹1,05,000 crore to develop Visakhapatnam in the next 10 years.
In the initial part of his presentation, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy explained how Hyderabad had been the centre of development in the combined Andhra Pradesh, and why A.P. needs to focus on developing the tertiary and secondary sectors linked to agriculture.
“Ours is primarily an agrarian State, and we need to develop the secondary sector supporting this sector,” he said.
He also spoke about the need to go for port-based development, as A.P. was blessed with about 974-km-long coastline.
“We already have about six ports in four locations. Now, we are building four more ports and 10 fishing harbours to harness the blue economy, and we are investing about ₹16,000 crore for that purpose,” the Chief Minister said.
“In the global investment summit, we could garner about ₹13 lakh crore investments, and we have already translated about 39% of them into reality. The remaining are in the advanced stage of processing,” he said.
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy signed off by saying, “We will prevail, survive and bounce back.”
