Andhra Pradesh Eyes IT Boom with New Data Centre Policy

He said, “Some leaders in the previous government had demanded shares in IT companies and hence investors deserted the state in the last five years.”

Replying to the questions from Vamsi Krishna, Ganta Srinivasa Rao, Vishnukumar Raju, Srinivas and Eswara Rao, the minister said Chandrababu Naidu as chief minister since 2014 had moved ahead with the slogan of ‘One capital, but decentralisation of development’.
“As part of this, the CM sought to speed up the development of the IT sector in Visakhapatnam,” he said.

Lokesh said at least 150 companies were set up in the state between 2014 and 2019, providing jobs to 50,000 youths. “We had even entered into an agreement with industrialist Goutam Adani to establish a data centre in AP. We organised a conclave in Vizag with several IT giants,” he noted.

The minister said that due to the greed of YSRC leaders, units like NICSI and STBI left the state and the youths lost employment opportunities. Efforts are now on to get NICSI to Vizag.

“In the past five months, I had discussions with representatives of various IT companies. TCS would be setting up its unit in Visakhapatnam very soon. It also agreed to set up a campus in Vizag. I also made a request to Infosys to set up another campus. We are now in search of necessary land for this purpose. I am confident that this will take off within six months,” Lokesh said.

The minister said, “Since the previous government did not focus on setting up data centres, they moved to neighbouring states like Karnataka and Telangana as also to Mumbai. At least $300 billion will be invested in this sector per annum. My target is to attract at least $100 billion to AP.”

Owners of the data centres had raised several issues during the discussions, like data security and taxation, he said, adding that now talks were on to resolve these.

Lokesh admitted that payment of incentives to certain companies was due. Some `500 crore has been released recently for this purpose. “Now, the focus is on ‘Speed of Doing Business’ and the issue of granting permissions to the IT companies is being closely monitored.”