“The coastal plan will be different from port policy, which will also be brought out soon” Mr Jain explained
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government will bring a comprehensive Coastal Master Plan on June 15 for coast-centric development in the state. “It will not only have development of ports but all round infrastructure development. KPMG (Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler), a professional services consultancy, was authorised to prepare the plan and we will get it in a week. We will discuss at the official level and the final draft will be submitted to the Chief Minister,” Mr Ajay Jain, secretary, Infrastructure and Investment, told this newspaper.
“The coastal plan will be different from port policy, which will also be brought out soon. Andhra Pradesh has a long coastline and we want to develop it into a logistics hub. It would lay out a map for inland waterways development as well. We asked collectors of coastal districts to prepare plans on the scope of development and we will be getting them in the next couple of days,” Mr Jain explained.
Chief secretary I.Y.R. Krishna Rao has also directed the collectors of Krishna, Srikakulam, Prakasham and West Godavari to expedite the process of land acquisition for Machilipatnam, Bhava-napadu, Ramayampet and Narsapur ports, which were picked up for development. Dugarajapatnam port has been selected for development by the Centre.
K. Vijayanand, the CMD of AP Trnasco told DC that the coastal development plan is part of the Vizag Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC), for which the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to give $1 billion. “Several proposals including development of power, roads, ports and airport connectivity are under consideration and the master plan would address everything,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Centre has agreed to bear the cost of land acquisition for the expansion of airports at Vijayawada, Tirupati and Visakhapatnam. chief secretary I.Y.R. Krishna Rao recently addressed a letter to the CEO of NITI Aayog in this regard, a media release said. The ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) has already initiated steps on Tirupati airport. It has requested the state government and the TTD to furnish details on bookings made for Tirupati by NRIs through Internet; darshan tickets made available to NRIs by TTD; list of donors; Break Darshan issued to NRIs etc.
“We want to know the approximate number of NRIs who visit Tirupati and Vijayawada every year so that MoCA can consider starting international operations in both the airports,” G. Venkateswarlu, a senior officer of I&I department said. The use of social media like YouTube and Facebook for getting response from NRIs on the proposal to start international operations at Vijayawada and Tirupati is also under consideration by the government, he added.
The government is also thinking of studying the best practices of all the ports of neighbouring states to develop AP as a model state in the port industry. For this the government has directed the officials to furnish a monthly progress report on issues connected with the industry.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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