Identifying Visakhapatnam as a top priority city for the central government, Rajya Sabha MP, Mr GVL Narasimha Rao stated that the city of destiny is being given utmost priority by the central government for various development projects.

‘Vizag is in the Centre’s top priority list for development. The city has been selected as one of the only 4 cities in the country for developing city-regions as Growth Hubs’ said the Rajya Sabha MP speaking at a CII session on Ports and multimodal transportation.

Recognizing the importance of leveraging urbanization for economic growth and in line with NITI Aayog’s mandate of fostering Cooperative Federalism, an initiative focused on developing City-regions as Growth Hubs has been conceived.

This initiative is a close collaboration of NITI Aayog with the State Governments and renowned subject experts. It endeavours to forge a robust economic growth strategy for city-regions across India and prepare a roadmap for achieving the same.

 NITI Aayog would also constitute a National Advisory Committee of renowned experts under this initiative.

In the initial stage, 4 city-regions have been taken up on a pilot basis to develop a template for devising an economic strategy. These cities include Mumbai, Surat, Visakhapatnam and Varanasi.

The Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament therefore urged industry to come out with a clear blueprint with actionable points.

‘I can assure you that with my intervention all possible help will be extended for Vizag at the highest level but for that we first need to have a clear identification of what we want’ noted GVL.

He also called on industry to work on realistic goals which can be achieved. ‘We similarly need to have a clear understanding of what is feasible’ said the Rajya Sabha MP.