Starting afresh: Chief minister after a decade, Chandrababu in his second innings sets sights on infrastructure and pharma as well
Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has shown once again that he was more a businessman than a politician as he kicks off his five-day visit to Japan today to raise funds for building the new capital and also urban infrastructure in the new state.
Naidu who has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as the liason agency for his meetings with government, private investors, industry groups, infrastructure companies etc has lined up a busy schedule. "The purpose is to showcase our resources, opportunities and also choose best technology for huge infrastructure projects," says chief minister Chandrababu Naidu.
Naidu's team includes ministers, bureaucrats and also industrialists besides management and infrastructure experts. After toying with the idea of constructing the new capital of Andhra Pradesh on the lines of Singapore, chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is also pitching for a Japanese model after a group of Japanese builders met him in Hyderabad last month and showed interest in building a smart capital city in Vijayawada-Guntur region. "We are a sunrise state and hence our date with sunrise countries like Japan and Singapore," said Naidu when asked why he had chosen them as models.
The government has already released Rs 1.5 crore towards the expenses of the 18-member official and another 10-member unofficial team of ten senior leaders. Besides PwC, the state has roped in Ernst & Young to manage Naidu's schedule in specific fronts like infrastructure, IT and pharma.
Naidu already has a team of nine advisers (mostly retired bureaucrats) and 14 consultants (experts in all sectors) working for him. He has appointed Parakala Prabhakar, a former BJP/ Praja Rajyam leader and also husband of Union minister Nirmala Seetharaman in Modi Cabinet as advisor (communications)and government spokesman. There are at least five businessman in his cabinet and most of his state ministers are also corporate honchos with business interests. For that matter Naidu himself is a stake holder in the Heritage Goods Ltd, a milk and vegetables retail and wholesale chain in the country.
Since he commenced his second innings, Naidu has made it clear to his party men that he would promote industrialists and business groups friendly to party in its bad times. Industrialists and contractors like CM Ramesh (contractor of Chittoor and now an MP), Rayapati Sambashiv Rao (tobacco tycoon of Guntur), P Narayana (a state cabinet member), Jaydev Galla (Amaraja batteries group) are all in his good books and part of his team foreign delegations.
Naidu's itinerary includes an address to the India IT Forum in Kyoto, meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meetings with ministers of economy, trade and industry, land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, and an interaction with the top brass of Japan International Cooperation Agency. He will also visit Yokohama port and meet chief executives of companies such Hitachi, Panasonic and Mitsubishi.
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