Vijayawada: About 75 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are gearing up to start building their facilities at Veerapanenigudem industrial cluster to begin operations soon.

These new companies, which will create around 2,600 new jobs directly, include manufacturers of aerospace components, machinery spares, press tools, captive equipment, home appliances and firms specialising in engineering services, said Dr. Ravikumar Vemuru, president & CEO of the Andhra Pradesh Non Resident Telugu Society (APNRT), the government body that has been instrumental in initiating and facilitating this new cluster of SMEs in Amaravati.

The Chief Minister will inaugurate the construction of 75 SMEs at Veerapanenigudem on September 30 on Vijaya Dasami day.

“The APNRT has been entrusted the task of charting out a plan for creating a consortium of SMEs and developing a model industrial cluster for them, said Dr. Ravikumar Vemuru.

The Amaravati Industries Association (AIA) was formed after a group of investors showed interest to set up base in the state during the Chief Minister’s visit to the United Kingdom in 2016.

What started as a group of 30 manufacturing companies is now 145-member strong. Shortly, we shall see the first set of investments hitting the ground.

The Amaravati Industries Association, (AIA) companies, the first SME cluster of its kind, will start the first phase of their operations within a year as the land has already been allotted to them by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastruc-ture Corporation (APIIC), said Dr. Ravikumar Vemuru.

APNRT is a nodal agency of the state government that facilitates investments into Andhra Pradesh by working through a network of Telugu-origin entrepreneurs who are spread across the globe.

The state government has identified Veerapanenigudem as an ideal place for the AIA industrial cluster and land was procured from the APIIC with active help from APNRT, said Mr.K .Sambasiva Rao, CEO, APNRT. “We played a crucial role in enabling smooth and hassle-free execution of all the necessary procedures in the industrial site. In the first phase, sites were allotted to 75 companies of the 145 firms, via a lottery system conducted by the AIA,” he added.