It’s not easy to do business in India but Andhra Pradesh is willing to look at every regulation or law that will make it easy for the entrepreneurs to do business in the state, said Nara Lokesh, Minister for Human Resources Development; IT electronics & communication at Government of Andhra Pradesh.
“While every one of us is trying to top the ease of doing business (EoDB) rankings, let’s accept the fact that it is not easy to do business in India. I am promising every entrepreneur that Andhra as a platform is willing to change. We are willing to look at every law and rewrite every law to ensure that entrepreneurs not only have a soft landing but actually thrive in this ecosystem. We are willing to make the lives of entrepreneurs easy and to deliver in spirit of EoDB,” he said at the second day of the 30th CII Partnership Summit 2025.
Lokesh said that to attract Google’s $15-billion investment in the state took 13 months of work, including tweaking some regulations. In October, Google announced setting up a gigawatt-scale AI data centre and hub in Visakhapatnam. It will be the biggest AI site for Google outside the US. “Google investment sounds great, but it took us months of hard work. We worked on regulations, data privacy, lawful intercept definition, data embassies, and retrospective taxation. It was done in the national interest, and in the process, Andhra got the first-mover advantage. If other states are sleeping, I can’t help it,” he said.
With the recently-announced quantum valley in Amaravati that aims to attract an investment of $1 billion by January 2029, the minister said that the state is not just looking at developing a quantum computer, but to tap the funds available in the National Quantum Mission to build an ecosystem around manufacturing. “In next 10 years, you will see actual manufacturing happening in the Amaravati cluster,” he said.
Further, Lokesh said that the role of his government is to do match-making with entrepreneurs on one side, and venture capitalists/private equity players on the other side. Also, he said that the goal is to create an environment that stands the test of time and politics. “Creating an enabling environment requires an institutional framework and that is why the current Andhra government has many young ministers. Almost 17 out of 25 ministers are first timers. We bring in raw energy, passion to change things,” he said.
Unlike other state governments, the minister said that Andhra government has a vast amount of data through the GovTech platform.
“We are offering this platform to budding entrepreneurs who can work on it, look at data, and come up with new solutions for India and the world. Some ideas that we are now working on is as simple as during floods, how can we deliver relief using drones effectively. Entrepreneurship is a bit glorified with IT alone. I believe that’s just one part of the entire equation. There’s a lot more that we can do that will take the state economy from a $180 billion economy to $2.4 trillion economy (by 2047),” Lokesh said.
