Vijayawada: The Krishna district administration is planning growth of industries in the region. As part of it, the officials sent a letter to the director-municipal administration to know the priorities of land required for the proposed housing abutting the Jakkampudi economic city. Recently, the government initiated activity of the Jakkampudi economic city and land costs in and around the city have risen up to Rs 1 crore per acre. Hence, the administration wants to show land for the housing, a little far from the Jakkampudi economic city, as they will be available for Rs 40 lakh to Rs 50 lakh per acre.
Unless housing is clubbed with the economic city activity, it will be difficult to reach the growth rate in the industrial sector, said a district official. Sharing details about the land requirement for Jakkampudi economic city, district collector B. Lakshmikantham said they have written to the director - municipal administration to provide them the required land and accordingly, they will follow up further. Despite the demand for more than 28 lakh sq feet for the proposed economic city at Jakkampudi, the state was able to assure only 6.40 lakh sq. feet to the entrepreneurs, who have been waiting for this ‘project on papers’ to translate into a reality, for the last four years.
The CM has a dream to create 9 more economic cities in the state, to start functioning within three years, from 2014. After the shift of focus from economic cities to the energy, I&I department, the Jakkampudi file could see the light, and the teething issue is that it needs more than 20 lakh sq.feet space. “We have to understand that the state is going to experience '20,000 crore-burden on its exchequer and lack of integration between several government agencies involved in the housing programme would have an adverse impact,” said a senior official.
The economic city will be the creator of employment, especially for the targeted sections like-unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled youth, who constitute 43 per cent of the unemployed youth in the state, as per statistics, said Dr L.S.N. Prasad, Professor of Economics. Now, the nationalised banks are also yielding towards sanctioning loans to housing and MSME sectors. Indian Overseas Bank MD&CEO R. Subramaniakumar said that both housing and MSME are their priority sectors. Citing the same, a senior official of the finance department felt that the government should utilise the services of such banks to promote MSMEs which generates employment to around 45 per cent unemployed youth.
