Vijayawada: Land acquisition for the ambitious Vizag Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC), a gift of the AP Reorganisation Act, is moving at a snail’s pace. Of the estimated 60,568 acres required to develop the corridor in four nodes, the government has acquired only 5,043 acres in four years.
Acquisition of remaining land will be a tough task since much of it is in possession of D Patta holders. Another 23,876.15 acres belongs to the government. Of the remaining land that needs to be acquired, 13,181.80 acres is DKT land and 23,510.63 acres patta land.
Under the new land acquisition laws, huge sums need to be given to the land losers.
In Vizag alone, the AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) estimates that it needs at least Rs 1,000 crore to acquire about 5,295 acres which includes government, patta and assigned land parcels.
Machilipatnam has the highest 12,000 acres of patta land among other nodes that have to be acquired.
“We have been asking the district collectors to accelerate land acquisition in all the four nodes as it has been for years and only a small extent of land has been acquired,” said a senior official of the industries department.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) which is the nodal agency of VCIC had submitted the final report of 366-page Conceptual Development Plan to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of the Centre in August 2015.
The ADB will provide at least $650 million as loan and grant to create infrastructure along the corridor to attract investments in the manufacturing sector. As part of the VCIC strategy, four industrial nodes were identified. In the final plan, the Machilipatnam node has been renamed Gannavaram-Kankipadu that comes under the new capital region.
Other nodes are Yerpedu-Srikalahasti, Kakinada, and Visakhapatnam. Pharmaceuticals, auto and auto components, textiles, metallurgy, chemicals and petrochemicals, electronics and food processing are the key industries that can be established in the VCIC.
