A New Vision For Visakhapatnam

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: There is nothing wrong with vision statements provided they don’t entail asking for the moon! The dazzling success of the city-State of Singapore has led many in the country to seek to emulate its example. But a major problem is to apply such lessons to a vast continental-sized economy than just a metropolis. India’s 21st largest metropolis, Visakhapatnam, now has a vision to become another modern Asian nation like Singapore.

Taking the entire district of Vizag into account, both the regions have a comparable population 3.8 million population. Vizag has a per capita income of $510 in 2000 which was what Singapore had when it began its transition to a modern developed nation way back in 1965.

Over three decades, that increased at compound annual growth rate of 14 per cent to become $25,000.

So what does it take for Vizag to aim for this miracle?

For starters, the region needs a roadmap to become a bustling metropolis like Singapore. The Gitam Institute of Foreign Trade is busy meeting this requirement by putting out the first ever district-level development report in the country — The Visakhapatnam Development Report or VDR. This notes that priority must be accorded to health and education to empower people to make the “best of their lives” and to build an attractive infrastructure, coupled with a culture of hard work and efficiency.

Vizag for a long time was a mere halt on the journey from one presidency capital to another. It acquired a university, a port, a shipyard and yet hasn’t emerged as a magnet for development. A favourable conjuncture was when the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant came up.

Because of its high linkages, there was an expectation that industrialisation would take off.

Researchers observed that many of the small scale industries that came up to take advantage of the steel plant were funded by agrarian surpluses of the forward landowning community in the region.

Expectations were thus high that a classic process of development would be set in motion based on transfers from the countryside to the town. But long delays in setting up the steel plant thwarted this possibility and the coastal region’s rich gravitated to Hyderabad and Chennai.