Lokesh’s groundwork credited for AP’s big-ticket investments

Amaravati: Industry and government sources increasingly attribute the scale and quality of investment commitments secured at the CII Visakhapatnam Partnership Summit to the sustained and behind-the-scenes effort of Minister for IT and HRD Nara Lokesh.

The two-day summit, held on November 14–15, resulted in investment commitments to the tune of Rs 13.25 lakh crore through 613 MoUs, with an estimated employment potential of 16.31 lakh jobs across multiple sectors.

The dominant conversation in policy and corporate circles is that Lokesh’s groundwork played a decisive role in shaping outcomes.

Officials and senior executives familiar with the process say that while Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu led from the front as the face of investor engagement, Lokesh assumed the role of the operational architect, designing investor engagement pipelines, conducting direct outreach and leading background-level negotiations.

A widely-discussed view within senior bureaucracy is that Naidu “handled the stage”, while Lokesh “handled the engine room”.

Lokesh’s work was reportedly central to MoUs involving green energy, digital infrastructure, technology, semiconductor-linked services, and data-centric investments. Over the past 16 months, he is said to have undertaken extensive domestic and overseas travel, visiting corporate headquarters, innovation labs and data-infrastructure facilities to directly pitch Andhra Pradesh as a long-term investment destination.

According to officials in the Chief Minister’s Office, Lokesh maintained a continuous follow-up line with senior Google executives regarding the proposal for a 1-gigawatt hyperscale data-centre facility in Visakhapatnam, seen as one of the most strategic digital-economy projects under consideration. He also played a key role in bringing ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel manufacturing unit to Andhra Pradesh. The project involves a massive investment of approximately Rs 1.4 lakh crore.

Government insiders say that a core policy objective behind such efforts was retaining Andhra Pradesh talent, particularly engineering and technology graduates, by expanding local high-value employment capacity. “The thinking was not just about investments, but about reversing outbound migration of youth,” an official said.

Parallel to political and diplomatic outreach, Lokesh’s team reportedly focused on MoU quality and conversion probability, an element that had drawn criticism in previous summits. Unlike past investment events where officials signed MoUs indiscriminately, this time proposals were screened, verified and capacity-checked, and several applications were reportedly rejected before signing.

For MoUs deemed viable, escort officers from relevant departments were assigned to ensure post-MoU tracking from Day-1, a process intended to increase execution success rates.

A detailed post-mortem study of the 2014–19 investment cycle was also conducted to understand why earlier announcements under Naidu’s previous tenure had not materialised at the expected scale. Insights from that assessment reportedly guided the creation of 25 revamped industrial and sectoral policies, supported by faster clearances, assured land-allocation frameworks, growth-linked incentives, and Escrow-based disbursement systems designed to reduce bureaucratic discretion.

Multiple investors cited AP’s risk-mitigation structure, policy clarity, and sovereign-backed comfort mechanisms as confidence drivers. Some foreign investors told government officials that policy guarantees independent of political cycles significantly influenced their willingness to commit to large-scale, multi-year capital deployment.

While the investment cycle now shifts to execution, senior officials believe that Lokesh’s operational role marks a structural shift in AP’s investment playbook, from event-driven announcements to an institutional, compliance-bound conversion model, a change that many say will ultimately determine the credibility of Andhra Pradesh as a long-term investment hub.