New Andhra Pradesh industrial policy with incentives for SC/ST announced

Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, October 26  

The Andhra Pradesh government has come up with a new industrial policy (2020-23) that provides a special push to aspiring entrepreneurs, especially among the underprivileged communities, particularly scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST).  

This new industrial policy will provide an added focus on strengthening pre-establishment support, improving market linkages, credit facilities, and economic development with a focus on encouraging increased participation of SC/ST entrepreneurs by providing special incentives to promote the 362 manufacturing and 9,754 service sector activities among the socially disadvantaged communities. 

Launched by Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday, the policy aims at providing land under the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) guidelines. The APIIC allotment guidelines will be redesigned to provide at least 16.2% and 6% of the developed land reserved for SC/ST entrepreneurs in industrial parks.  

The government also proposes establishing a dedicated SC/ST entrepreneur facilitation cell under YSR AP One at all-district industrial centres for handholding SC/ST entrepreneurs for quick grounding of the projects. 

Making the lives easier for the SC/ST entrepreneurs, the government has created a roadmap for training these entrepreneurs. Training on the sectors will be conducted through APSSDC skill colleges.  

“Our new industrial development policy 2020-23 launched recently is centred on balancing growth across regions and communities. I firmly believe that this new policy is a vital step towards promoting entrepreneurship amongst the marginalised for inclusive growth and development,” the chief minister announced. 

On the occasion the minister for industries, Mekapati Goutham Reddy, said, “We intend to provide additional support to the weak and marginalised and hence have come out with this special industrial policy for SC/ST 2020-23. We are also providing seed capital assistance to support the entrepreneur start-up quickly and provide incentives on power, GST, and interest to reduce operating costs and provide support.”