Q. What is the status of the different thrust areas mentioned in Andhra Pradesh State ESDM Policy 2014-2020 such as establishing 20 EMCs, a centre for excellence on fabless semiconductors and the like?
A. We have identified six locations, namely, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Kakinada, Sri City, Tirupati and Anantapur, that are available for investors to start manufacturing units immediately. We will continue to identify and add EMCs in the state. Discussions are on with semiconductor companies to set up fabless semiconductor facilities, and there are plans to create a silicon campus, too.
Q. How does your government plan to ensure policy implementation for promoting electronics and IT in the state?
A. As I mentioned earlier, Andhra Pradesh has set up an agency (Andhra Pradesh Electronics & IT Agency) exclusively to address the needs of the electronics and IT industries. This is headed by professionals from the industry, who will help in understanding the needs of the companies and, hence, enable us to make the process of setting up and doing business in Andhra Pradesh easy. The agency is tasked with the responsibility of creating the ecosystem needed for electronics manufacturing within identified clusters.
Q. How will the state foster entrepreneurship and an innovation culture in the ESDM sector?
A. Andhra Pradesh has laid heavy emphasis on promoting innovation and developing an entrepreneurial and start-up culture in the state. We have released an innovation and start-up policy with a target to have an entrepreneur in every family in the state. We want to incubate 5000 companies and start-ups, and have also proposed to mobilise a venture capital fund to drive innovation.
Andhra Pradesh is the first state in India to have a dedicated innovation society to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. The society has adopted a two-pronged approach:
1. Facilitate the setting up of innovation hubs in multiple locations where incubators help entrepreneurs to pursue their ambitions. We have provided state-of-art environment and infrastructure for the benefit of such entrepreneurs.
2. Facilitate the setting up of incubation centres at universities and institutes of higher education, with an aim to establish 100 innovation hubs across the state by 2020.
Q. What are the initiatives taken by Andhra Pradesh government to promote e-governance?
A. I have always been a keen proponent of using IT in governance. My focus is to make Andhra Pradesh the top state in terms of the quality and number of e-services in India.
We have Mee Seva project, which has been recommended by Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) for country-wide replication. Currently, 311 services are being offered through Mee Seva. Another 150 services are being identified. With more than 4000 kiosks and a dedicated network to support the service, Mee Seva is one of the most robust citizen service-delivery platforms. We target setting up 10,000 Mee Seva centres to ensure coverage across the state.
Providing gigabit connectivity to all villages is also my priority. Through Andhra Pradesh Fibre Net, we aim to deliver affordable broadband to everyone by 2018. Our objective is to bridge the digital divide through rural e-commerce and digital literacy.
With e-Pragati, Andhra Pradesh will become the first state in India to conceive and execute a state-wide enterprise architecture. The project has a one-government approach and uses the best principles of enterprise architecture. It is a comprehensive framework for implementing e-governance and provides e-services to citizens of Andhra Pradesh. e-Pragati will extend to 33 secretariat departments and over 300 government agencies in the state, and seeks to provide 745 services under one roof.
