I am hungry and want Andhra to attract $1 tn investment: Nara Lokesh

Andhra Pradesh (AP) has been a late starter among Indian states in attracting investments, especially after Telangana was carved out of it in 2014.

- N Madhavan [e-mail]

But it has been punching much above its weight recently, signing a $15-billion investment by Google to set up an artificial intelligence (AI) hub and data centre. Nara Lokesh, the state's minister of human resource development, IT & electronics, and chief minister Chandrababu Naidu's son, spoke about AP's strategy to attract investments, competition among states and his verbal duel with ministers from Karnataka. Edited excerpts:

It has been an amazing journey. We've been able to so far get close to $120 billion worth of firm commitments in the last 17 months, which is unheard of in the Indian context. But I'm hungry. I want it to be a trillion dollars. I'll sleep well the day when we have a firm commitment of a trillion dollars worth of investments in Andhra.