On Friday, the Department of Municipal Administration and Urban Development issued a notice in the gazette, withdrawing seven tax warrants and 82 villages from the Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Area Development Authority and placing them under the new UDA VK-PCPIR. .

The new entity will now include 10 fiscal mandals and 97 villages spread over an area of ​​640 km², stretching from the village of Kurada in the district of Visakhapatnam to Vakalapudi in the east of Godavari.

The ruling YSR congressional activist, Chokkakula Lakshmi, has been appointed chairman of VK-PCPIR UDA while the VMRDA commissioner will at all times be chief executive. The president will have a two-year term, depending on the notification.

It will have ten other official members, including collectors from the districts of Visakhapatnam and East Godavari.

In 2020, the AP government sought to revive the Visakhapatnam-Kakinada PCPIR project, first conceived in 2007 and aligned two costly projects as key tenants in Kakinada with a total investment of over US $ 15.72 billion.

The Directorate of Industry, Infrastructures and Investments of the PA had drawn up the Master Plan VK-PCPIR-2031 to develop industrial centers, the motorway and the large transport network, residential townships and knowledge centers as part of the grandiose project.

The government’s objective is to attract investments of Rs two lakh crore to make the state the largest petrochemical center in the country.

The project was expected to generate an impressive 12 lakhs (direct and indirect) over the years.

But official sources say there has been no progress on the project so far despite ambitious plans.