MC EXCLUSIVE Focus on balancing welfare and development, ups and down part of political journey: Andhra IT Min Nara Lokesh

The Andhra Pradesh government is focused on “balancing welfare and development”, Nara Lokesh, the state's Minister for Information Technology, Electronics and Communications told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview.

“As a political party, we've always been focused on both. We've had our ups, we've had our downs, and I believe that's part of every political journey,” the Minister said.

The focus has also been on agriculture, aquaculture and AI, Nara Lokesh added. “Let me give you an example of this. We have SIPB, which is the State Investment Promotion Board where we discuss all the companies, the incentives and so on and so forth.”

“In one of the recent meetings, I came across a company doing mushroom processing. And the secretary in charge of food processing mentioned that ninety percent of mushrooms supplied to the globe comes from one country, and that's China. And then it was a lightbulb moment for me. I thought, what can Andhra do in the mushroom sector? Within exactly twelve hours, we had a three-page research note ready,” said the minister.

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“We went to the Chief Minister to get the green signal from him. He said, done, let's do it. Industry should lead this initiative, bring everyone together. So, what we've done in aquaculture, we're going to replicate that entire model in mushroom cultivation as well. We're calling it the Mushroom Mission,” said Nara Lokesh.

Andhra Pradesh is aspiring to grow from $188 billion to a $2.4 trillion economy by 2047. “To achieve this target, we need to work across all sectors, and agriculture will play a crucial role in this journey,” Nara Lokesh told Moneycontrol.

“Industry is going to be huge, services will be big. Frankly speaking, every sector is important for us to achieve our goals,” said Nara Lokesh.

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Learnings from CM Naidu

On learnings from Chief Minister and father Chandrababa Naidu, Lokesh said, “winning elections is important, every single cycle matter. But what's more important is convincing people about the value of continuity in governance.”

“People saw the good work we did between 2014 and 2019. But then someone else came along saying, "I can do even better." And people thought, ‘Okay, let's give him a chance, no harm in trying’", he said.

“Then we all witnessed five years of really poor governance, and people genuinely regretted their decision. That's exactly why they gave us such a massive 94% mandate this time. Yes. And we're working with a lot of humility despite this huge mandate. Our focus is clear - we have to create jobs,” Lokesh said.