Vizag-Chennai industrial belt snippets

Giving a big fillip to the economic growth of residuary Andhra Pradesh, Asian Development Bank (ADB) has announced that it will pump in a staggering $ 2.5 billion (over Rs.15,000 crore) in the form of financial assistance to develop the Visakhapatnam-Chennai industrial corridor proposed by the NDA government in the Union budget.
ADB country director Hum Kim made the announcement of developing the industrial corridor after meeting AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu .Kim said a special officer would be appointed to monitor the industrial corridor's progress and assured Naidu that the industrial zones proposed in the corridor would be set up within six months.
The project envisages development of five industrial zones. These zones are to come up in Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Machilipatnam, Anantapur and Erpedu-Srikalahasti.  Apart from the financial assistance, the ADB chief said the bank would help the state government attract investors from China, Japan, South Korea and European countries.
Apart from the five cities and towns in the state that the industrial corridor would pass through, Rajahmundry , Bhimavaram, Nuzivedu, Vijayawada, Guntur, Bapatla, Ongole, Nellore, Gudur and Naidupeta would also stand to gain in the form of rapid industrial development. The corridor envisages self-sustaining industrial townships with world-class infrastructure, road and rail connectivity for freight movement to and from ports and logistics hubs, domestic, international air connectivity , uninterrupted power and quality social infrastructure.
As part of the project, several industrial clusters are likely to come up in the seven coastal districts of AP . In his budget presentation, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley had specifically mentioned the development of Kakinada port in East Godavari district and also a hardware cluster in the region.
With experts from PricewaterhouseCoopers and John Arnold, an independent consultant working under the guidance of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion under the Union ministry of commerce and industry overseeing the Vizag­-Chennai industrial corridor project, ADB joining the venture would hasten the pace of the project implementation, felt AP government officials.