NITI Aayog’s Growth Hub programme’s plan report for Visakhapatnam region likely by January, says official

Since Visakhapatnam is similar to Mumbai on the west coast, there was a suggestion of looking at common aspects of both the cities and include them in the plan, says an official
| Photo Credit: V RAJU

The plan report of the Visakhapatnam region is expected to be released in January, 2025, under the Growth Hubs Programme of the Union Ministry of Planning. The programme will focus on agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, trade, commerce and transport sectors.

By mid-2023, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog under the Ministry of Planning had identified four cities, namely Mumbai, Surat, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam, to be developed as growth hubs on a pilot basis.

While the project reports of three other cities are in final stages of prepration, it is in mid-stage of planning when it comes to Visakhapatnam.

“Therefore, the NITI Aayog is expected to release the final project report of the Growth Hubs programme for the four cities, including Visakhapatnam, in January, 2025,” said a VMRDA official, here.

Speaking to The Hindu, the VMRDA official said that a meeting with stakeholders of the Visakhapatnam region of Growth Hubs programme, was chaired by NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, who is National Steering Committee Head, at the VMRDA office recently. The stakeholders, including Collectors of all the eight North Coastal Andhra Pradesh districts, attended the meeting where they discussed about the current status of preparations for the programme for Visakhapatnam region, in the presence of Mr. Subrahmanyam.

The NITI Aayog officials gave some new suggestions to the stakeholders. A discussion was specially held on the feasibility and availability of natural resources in Visakhapatnam, Anakapalli, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam, Alluri Sitaramaraju, Parvathipuram-Manyam and Godavari districts.

The Growth Hubs programme is an initiative under the Viksit Bharat scheme to develop urban areas in a planned manner to achieve the economic goal of making India a $30 trillion economy by 2047. The programme aims to create a model for developing economic growth strategies for cities. Initially, four cities were selected for the first and pilot phase, and all cities will be covered in the subsequent phases.

The programme’s activities include a preliminary assessment of the city region’s economy, analysis to understand the region’s strengths and challenges, identifying growth drivers, setting economic goals, creating policy capacities and proposing a governance structure to evaluate proposed strategies.

“Since our Visakhapatnam city is similar to Mumbai on the west coast, there was a suggestion of looking at common aspects of both the cities and include them in the plan,” the VMRDA official said.