The Hindu : Front Page : Five industrial clusters to come up in State

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Sunday, Apr 23, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Five industrial clusters to come up in State

Special Correspondent

Centre clears proposals, says Union Industries Minister

HYDERABAD: Union Minister of State for Industries Ashwini Kumar has said that the Centre has cleared proposals to establish five specialised industrial clusters in Andhra Pradesh.

The Centre will actively support the specialised industrial clusters planned by the State Government, Dr. Ashwini Kumar said, addressing a joint press conference with Industries Minister J. Geetha Reddy here on Saturday.

The Union Minister said two such clusters comprising the pharmaceutical sector at Visakhapatnam and auto components cluster at Vijayawada had already been approved. Clearance had been issued to marine food processing cluster at Bhimavaram, powerloom cluster at Sircilla, leather cluster at Bhongir, pecision tool cluster in Ranga Reddy and coir product cluster in West Godavari district.

The Centre had created a corpus of Rs. 950 crores for infrastructural development of the industrial clusters across the country. Keeping in view the growing demand, the Centre is planning to further strengthen the corpus.

Mr. Kumar promised the necessary support to the Andhra Pradesh Government in order to boost the industrial growth and facilitate establishment of industrial clusters and Special Economic zones.

The State Government had made a request for provision of concessional finance from Nabard to the State financial institutions.

"So far, Nabard has been providing such concessional finance for commercial banks only. However, the Centre will examine the scope for extending the same facility to the AP State Finance Corporation, AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation and the AP Industrial Development Corporation," he said.

Leather complex

This move, Dr. Kumar said, would bring down the cost of the projects and make them more viable.

The Union Minister said an integrated leather complex with world-class facilities was planned between Chennai and Nellore in Andhra Pradesh on 415 acres. The Centre had already sanctioned Rs. 30 crores for the project while the State Government would chip in with Rs. 20 crores.

Dr. Geetha Reddy said the Government would soon rope in a developer for the Integrated Leather Complex at Nellore on the lines of the Pharma City project being developed by Ramky Group at Visakhapatnam.

New SEZs planning to be developed included one at Visakhapatnam close to the Pharma City, Gem and Jewellery Park at Shamshabad, another SEZ at Visakhapatnam near the HPCL complex and one more at Tada in Nellore district.

She said the footwear unit of Apache Adidas coming up in Nellore district would generate employment for 30,000 people of which 20,000 would be women.

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