'Andhra needs a little bit of hand-holding for next few yrs'

NARA LOKESH, national general secretary of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), is a minister in the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet headed by his father, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, and takes care of crucial portfolios of Human Resource Development, Information Technology, Electronics and Communication and Real Time Governance. In a video interview, Lokesh discusses with Archis Mohan and Indivjal Dhasmana the state government's plans to conduct a skill census, the target to create two million jobs in five years, and the importance of striking a balance between welfarism and economic growth. Edited excerpts

- Archis Mohan and Indivjal Dhasmana

Did the Union Budget meet the expectations of the TDP and Andhra Pradesh government? Is the ₹15,000 crore promised by the Centre through multilateral agencies sufficient for the reconstruction of Amaravati?

From Day One, we made it clear that Amaravati is a self-sustaining project-- like any other capital city would be. All it requires is a bit of startup capital and that is what we were hoping for and we did get that. If you look at Hyderabad, it was created with that objective. It was a startup of sorts then, and now Hyderabad supports the entire state of Telangana financially. It is definitely a great start. You should also understand the historical context of the bifurcation, which was against the interest of the majority of the Andhraites for the simple reason that for 60 years, education, jobs, economic activity everything was in Hyderabad. And all of a sudden you said, leave. That is where Amaravati came about but the past five years were wasted. So, we have to restart the engine that was stalled.

The Centre has promised funds for infrastructure in Kopparthy and Orvakal along the VisakhapatnamChennai and Hyderabad-Bengaluru Industrial Corridors. What industries will benefit from this?