Ravi Shankar Prasad Offers Sops For Telangana, AP

Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday announced several new projects for both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Addressing a press conference, the Union Minister said that three electronics hubs would be established in Telangana, at Hyderabad, Maheshwaram and Medak. Further, the Information Technology Investment Region would get additional funds and support from the Centre.

The Centre was seriously considering an ITIR in Visakhapatnam, he said.

He also announced that Anantapur would be developed as an electronics manufacturing hub, with Chittoor too under active consideration. He said that the Andhra Pradesh Government had requested for the inclusion of Kakinada in the list. As part of the "Make In India" project, he said that the Centre would give a sanction of Rs 50 crores for electronics manufacturing hubs to States which allotted 50 acres of land for the hubs.

Ravi Shankar Prasad said that on Saturday he had met both the Chief Ministers - K Chandrashekar Rao (Telangana) and N Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra Pradesh) - and was impressed with the zeal and competitive nature. He said that the Telugu States were engaged in a healthy competition, and the Centre would extend all the required support to both.

Speaking about the Jana Dhan Yojna, the Union Minister said that so far nearly eight crore accounts had been opened under the scheme, and that people had deposited about Rs 10,000 crores into those accounts.

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had set a target of 10 crore accounts by January 26, 2015.

He also announced that broadband connectivity would be given to 2.50 lakh panchayats, and in the next three years, nearly seven lakh kilometres of cable would be laid across the country.

Stating that there were about 90 crore mobile phones in India, the Union Minister said that the Centre was keen to link several services to the mobile phone. (INN)