Lokesh Invites Telugus to Invest in AP

Vijayawada: Education minister Nara Lokesh has said Andhra Pradesh attracted an investment worth Rs.23.50 lakh crore in the last 18 months of the three-party rule.

This also meant a job potential for 16 lakh people, he said and attributed credit to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for this huge investment windfall for AP.

The minister, who accompanied the Chief Minister for the World Economic Forum meet in Davos, addressed a meeting of the European Telugu diaspora in Zurich, enroute to Davos, on Monday. The event was organised by the AP non-resident Telugus.

Lokesh explained that AP secured 25.3 per cent of the total investments made in the country during this period. He recalled how Telugu Desam’s founder president N.T. Rama Rao protected the Telugu self-respect and pride and demonstrated it to the bigwigs in the national capital in those days.

“The Chief Minister (Naidu) is developing the state in a big way. He adopted IT in Hyderabad and now took to quantum computing. He is attracting huge investments to AP,” Lokesh said.

The minister referred to Google’s $15 billion dollar project and ArcelorMittal’s `1.50 lakh crore steel plant plans in AP, and said TCS, Cognizant and others were coming forward to invest in the state.

The minister said several major companies were showing interest to invest in AP because of the brand image of Naidu. He wished that the 3-party alliance government would last 15 years as was stated recently by Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan.

Lokesh urged all Telugus around the world to become brand ambassadors for AP and invited them to invest in the state. He also wanted them to find out if there were any such expansion plans for the companies they were working abroad at present, so that such firms could be invited to AP.

The state government, he asserted, is promoting development and welfare together. “We improved basic amenities, laid roads, reduced power tariff, conducted teacher recruitment through DSC and recruited 6,000 police constables,” he said.

The minister criticised the opposition YSRC that has 11 MLAs for allegedly taking up a “misinformation campaign against the state by sending emails to some companies, urging them not to invest in AP.”