CHITTOOR:AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday inaugurated the 500-acre Amara Raja Growth Corridor (ARGC) in Chittoor district.
The facility set up on the Bengaluru-Chennai-Krishnapatnam industrial corridor is likely to attract `4,500 crore investment and create 20,000 jobs over the next 3-5 years.
The country’s second largest batteries producer Amara Raja Batteries, through one of its sister companies Mangal Industries Ltd, has already committed `200 crore investment and 800 jobs to set up a 10,000 mt plastics injection moulding facility at ARGC. This 15-acre anchor unit was unveiled by Naidu on Thursday.
ARGC will have exclusive industrial zones for storage battery units, electrical components, automotive batteries besides others and the company is in dialogue with domestic and international companies to start operations here.
“Investors are asking for land only in Tirupati, Nellore and at the new capital Amaravati. This (ARGC) facility in Nunegundlapalle village goes on to show that quality will attract multi-nationals to villages,” Naidu said adding that facilities encouraging manufacturing such as Sri City SEZ, availability of seaports, international airports and broad-gauge rail line will help AP evolve on the global manufacturing map.
“AP will emerge as the logistics hub and gateway for India due to port connectivity that helps companies to export,” he said adding that the state will evolve as one of the top 3 destinations in the country by 2022.
Meanwhile, Naidu, who also commissioned Amara Raja’s second automotive battery plant, said the facility was on a par with international standards and employs over 12,500 overall including 3,500 women.
Global Player
Chittoor: Amara Raja Batteries Ltd, the flagship company of Amara Raja Group, is targeting to emerge as the top global player for industrial batteries and a dominant regional player in automotive batteries in few years, according to Jaydev Galla, vice-chairman & managing director, of Amara Raja.
Currently, for industrial batteries, the company ranks number one within the Indian Ocean Rim and second for automotive batteries.
“We are one of the top 10 battery players in the world and in India we have a 50 per cent market share in telecom batteries, and 30 per cent each in UPS and automotive batteries,” he said adding the company will pursue both organic and inorganic growth.
The company employs over 2,500 in the automotive battery plant alone and is expected to scale up manpower to 8,000 in next two years, when production reaches full capacity.