Anantapur: Chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has said the dream of his father YSR for establishment of a steel plant in the region would soon materialise with the steel major JSW Group coming up with a huge investment in the state.
Jagan Mohan Reddy performed Bhoomi Puja and laid the foundation stone for construction of the Rs 8,800 crore Kadapa Steel Plant (KSP) at Sunnapurallapalle in Jammalamadugu mandal of YSR district on Wednesday. He expressed confidence that the plant would change the face of this district, also with the likely start of ancillary industries like green hydrogen and solar pump manufacturing units in near future.
The JSW Group would build the 3-D model green steel plant in two phases. The chief minister announced that 75 per cent of the jobs in the industry would be reserved for the locals.
Jagan Mohan Reddy broke the customary coconut and lit the traditional lamp to launch the steel plant project. He also planted some Neem and Peepal saplings.
The Chief Minister thanked business magnate Sajjan Jindal for planning a green steel plant for this region. “The region’s developmental aspirations remained neglected for long after the death of former chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy,” Jagan said.
He said the JSW Group has so far invested Rs 1.7 lakh crore the world over for its various business enterprises. Describing the Kadapa Steel Plant as the long cherished dream of the district, the CM said the surroundings of all steel plants would generally host several ancillary units. “I hope the area would develop like Visakhapatnam and Karnataka’s Vijayanagar,” he said
“We allotted Rs 700 crore to provide infrastructure like roads, water and power supply to the steel plant. The first phase of the KSP involving an investment of Rs 3300 crore, with an annual production capacity of 10 lakh metric tonnes, will be commissioned in a span of less than 30 months,” he said.
The CM said that in the second phase, the production capacity of the plant would be enhanced by 20 lakh metric tonnes with an additional investment of Rs 5500 crore. The plant, coming up on a 3500-acre leased land, would provide direct and indirect employment to 25,000 persons, he said.
The chief minister said the state achieved first rank in the Ease of Doing business (EoDB) besides achieving a growth rate of 11.43 per cent in 2021-22 and becoming the “fastest growing state.”
Jagan Mohan Reddy said the electronic cluster coming up in the 550-acre Kopparthi mega industrial park would provide employment to thousands of people. The Jagananna Industrial Hub would attract investments worth `18,000 crore in the near future, he said.
JSW chairman Sajjan Jindal, minister Adimulapu Suresh, MP Avinash Reddy and MLA Sudhir Reddy were present.
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