Cyber towers in Hyderabad.

Hyderabad: Chief minister Chandrababu Naidu is very keen to replicate his signature cyber towers/Hi-tec City dream in Andhra Pradesh as well.

Towards this end, the government is planning to come up with three such towers in the port city of Visakhapatnam, temple town of Tirupati and Rayalaseema’s farthest corner of Anantapur. The idea to have one such towering IT structure in Mangalagiri was dropped at the last minute as the capital city region will have other iconic buildings.

The biggest of them all will be the Millennium Towers with a built-up area of five lakh sq ft in Madhurawada in Vizag.

These new towers will be in addition to the Signature Towers that the government had planned to build in the port city. “Tenders will be called for the Millennium Towers later this month. We have released Rs 80 crore for the Vizag towers, while works on one of the two towers in Rayalaseema will be kickstarted soon,” G S Phani Kishore, special secretary, IT, told TOI. The Andhra Pradesh Industries Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) has been tasked with building all the three towers. While the site for the tower at Anantapur is yet to be finalised, the Tirupati tower will come up near Renigunta airport with a built-up area of one lakh sft. Names like Balaji (for Tirupati tower) and Krishnadevaraya (for Anantapur) are doing the rounds.

With Mangalagiri losing out in the race, the IT department has sought 500 acres from CRDA to develop IT sector in the capital city region.

McKinsey & Company will be the strategic consultant for development of IT in the capital city area. The IT department will take over one lakh sft area in a commercial building to be built by APIIC for other purposes in Mangalagiri. Notwithstanding the government’s renewed focus on IT, the effort is to draw investors and IT companies to ensure a level-playing field across various regions in AP.

“The state needs more than 30 lakh sft space for IT companies to do business. For now, we are providing 8 lakh sft area,” explained a senior official. Senior officials said that emphasis is being given to Vizag as it is the largest city in the state with a turnover of Rs 1,500 crore in IT sector and a growth rate of 20 per cent. Turnover from rest of the state is around Rs 150 crore. “This turnover is nothing in comparison to Hyderabad. Apart from cyber towers, Hyderabad’s stock had gone up thanks to international airport and other infrastructure. The government must replicate them in Vizag, Tirupati and Anantapur also so as to invite investments,” observed K Shankar, who owns an IT firm in Vijayawada.

With public-private partnership (PPP) mode not bearing fruit, the government had decided to entrust the work to APIIC, sources said.

