Partnership Summit 2012: AP signs MoUs worth Rs 1 lakh cr

Hyderabad: It was a day of MoUs in Hyderabad on Thursday, involving almost Rs 1,00,000 crore worth proposed investments in Andhra Pradesh over the next five years.

The inaugural day of the three-day CII Partnership Summit 2012 saw a flurry of MoUs being signed across sectors such as power, refinery, gas, mining and education.

With more agreements being lined up for Friday, the State Government expects the summit to end with investment proposals worth over a staggering Rs 5,00,00 crore involving top private and public sector companies.

One of the biggest proposals came from GMR Group, which expressed interest in investing Rs 33,000 crore for setting up a 15 million tonne refinery-cum-petrochemicals complex and a multi-product SEZ in the Vizag-Kakinada region.

This comes in the wake of ONGC withdrawing from the Kakinada greenfield refinery-cum-petrochemicals project, with the GMR Group proposing to pick up the divested stake.

BR Shetty Group has expressed interest to invest another Rs 30,000 crore to put up a refinery project at the PCPIR region in Visakhapatnam.

The Yash Birla group concluded a MoU involving an investment of Rs 13,000 crore to set up a sports city (Rs 2,000 crore) and an Ayurveda complex (Rs 750 crore), Rs 10,000 crore poly silicon plant, within the next 18 months.

Power sector
The power sector will form the bulk of the MoUs that are to be signed during the summit. While GVK Power has committed an investment of Rs 10,000 crore to set up up a 2,400 MW thermal power unit fired by coal from Australia, State-owned NTPC and AP Genco have expressed interest to set up a 400 mw and 9,760 mw stations respectively. Similarly, AP Power Development, a subsidiary of AP Genco, will set up another 2,200 mw plant and Singareni Colleries Co Ltd is planning a 1,200 mw coal-based unit in Adilabad district.

The Chief Minister, Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy, who signed the MoUs on behalf of the government, said committed improved infrastructure and a “hassle-free environment is conducive to attracting investments.”