While the weather forecasters are predicting the heat wave in Andhra Pradesh to be mellowing down politics continues to be scorching in the state.

With just a few days left for the much touted election date in Andhra Pradesh, political parties are going all out in getting their message loud and clear to the voters and inundating them with promises & assurances.

Among the slew of candidates who are vying to win the public’s trust is the scion of the TDP supremo (Mr Nara Chandrababu Naidu), Mr Nara Lokesh.

The national general secretary of TDP and a former Panchayat Raj, Rural development and IT & Communication minister of AP, Mr Lokesh has crisscrossed the length and breadth of state (walked over 3000 kms) under his ‘Yuvagalam Padyatra’ in order to connect with the voters at large and garner their support.

In an interview to Vizag Industrial Scan Mr Lokesh spoke about his party’s overall vision pertaining to industrial and business growth in the state while highlighting key sectors of growth. 

In a sentence what would you say is your overall vision for AP?

Development induced Welfare with Good Governance

What according to you are the top 5 sectors that are key for the growth of the state?

Agriculture and allied sectors (fisheries, poultry, etc.) is our top priority followed by manufacturing sector. Then we have major strengths in service sector like IT, Transport, Tourism.

AP is bestowed with natural beauty coupled with a long coastline. How do you ascertain AP’s tourism sector and your plans for it?

At the outset we will identify places with potential for tourism. Followed by this we will develop branding involving local people, so that we don’t miss out on local sensitivities as we aim to promote eco-tourism.  

We will act locally, but target global travelers.  Simultaneously, we have lot of you tubers from Andhra doing travel vlogs, we will involve them too. So it will be a partnership between local people, Government, private firms and tourists. We want travelers to experience what it means to be in Andhra Pradesh. 

Primarily we will build tourism infrastructure for anyone to travel with ease of access coupled with safety and security.

Other areas of tourism that needs to be tapped are Knowledge tourism and Medical tourism.  Andhra Pradesh is widely known as Knowledge hub and we will tap into that. 

AP’s IT&ITES sector needs a huge fillip if it needs to compete with the likes of Telangana and Bengaluru. What according to you needs to be done in elevating this sector for its next phase of growth?

During 2014-19, we did take giant steps towards providing boost to the IT & ITES sector.  But sadly because of the present Government’s destructive policies we have to start again from zero.  

This means we need to build confidence and trust not only among investors and big names in the industry, but also we need to work on human capital, ie IT professionals.  The challenge lies in luring IT professionals back to Andhra Pradesh.  

With right bandwidth and conducive ambience coupled with transport infrastructure we are confident that we can boost IT sector and compete with Bengaluru. 

I am not saying this with over confidence, but I am saying this with absolute responsibility as Bengaluru’s major problem is traffic coupled with lack of water. So we will put those aspects as advantageous to Andhra Pradesh. 

Innovation and Startups are seen as the new value creators and disruptors of sorts. Could you share some of your plans to boost this rapidly evolving sector?

Yes. We have wonderful human capital in the form young girls and boys in Andhra Pradesh, which unfortunately were not even considered for the past five years.  

We plan to build on our youth who have huge ideas coupled with innovation and disruptive sort of creativity. 

We will start incubation centres across the State for startups to come and experiment and learn from their experience.  For this we intend to invest on our best resource – young boys and girls.   

While automation slowly takes centre stage, Employment generation has become a huge task for governments all across the world. What are some of the steps you would undertake so that our graduates/young adults secure a job?

Automation is going to be the future, whether we like it or not, we cannot afford to ignore it.  Along with automation ancillary sectors will create jobs.  

But those jobs require technology based skills.  Hence, we need to train our youth with those skills that will help them access global job markets.  Unfortunately we lost five precious years from 2019 to 24.  

We will tap in to market and based on their requirements we will train our youth with market requirements so as to ensure that they are employable.  

Global investors and businesses generally seek continuity and uniformity in government policies irrespective which political party comes to power. What message would you want to give these very investors on behalf of your party.

Trust Mr Nara Chandrababu Naidu, he is our brand ambassador.