AP CM announces Rs.350-cr sops to granite units
AP Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Wednesday announced that a slab system will be implemented to boost the granite industry, where Rs 27,000 will be provided each month to single-blade processing units and Rs 54,000 per month for multi-blade processing units in Prakasam district.
image for illustrative purpose
Vijayawada: AP Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Wednesday announced that a slab system will be implemented to boost the granite industry, where Rs 27,000 will be provided each month to single-blade processing units and Rs 54,000 per month for multi-blade processing units in Prakasam district.
The Chief Minister was speaking after unveiling the bronze statues of his father, former Chief Minister Dr YS Rajashekar Reddy and former Darsi MLA Buchepalli Subba Reddy at Chimakurthy in Prakasam district and stated that great leaders will stay in the hearts of people forever. He said the decision will help granite units to purify raw granite up to 22 cubic meters.
For the processing units in Srikakulam and Rayalaseema regions, Rs 22,000 and Rs 44,000 will be given for single and multi-blade granite processing units. He said that the government had already issued GO in this regard aiming to benefit over 7,000 units, as promised during padayatra.
Besides this, the Chief Minister also announced to reduce Rs.2 per unit in power bills to small granite units, from the existing tariff of Rs 6.3 and Rs 6.7 per unit. With both slab system and reduction in power bills, an amount of Rs 350 crore will be borne by the State government every year.
He said that the slab system was brought during the YSR rule, but his predecessor, N Chandrababu Naidu had withdrawn the initiative in 2016 pushing the units to crisis.
The Chief Minister reminisced about the welfare schemes like free power to farmers, fee reimbursement, and Aarogyasri that were implemented during the YSR regime and stated that the current government had also fulfilled 95 per cent of the promises mentioned in the manifesto in the past three years. After unveiling the statues of YSR and Buchepalli Subba Reddy, he announced that Ambedkar's statue will also be unveiled in Vijayawada on April 14.
Speaking of the Veligonda Project, he said that YS Rajashekar Reddy had initiated the project and completed 11.58 km works of the first tunnel which is at a stretch of 18.8 km, and completed 8.74 km of the second tunnel of 118.78 km stretch. During 2014-19, Chandrababu Naidu's government had only completed 4.33 km and 2.35 km of work in both tunnels, he said adding that the current government had completed the construction of the first tunnel and assured to complete the second tunnel by September 2023.
