Andhra Pradesh is all set to project a record Gross State Domestic Product

2006
Syed Akbar
Hyderabad, Feb 14: Andhra Pradesh is all set to project a record Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) rate of 7.55 per cent for the current financial year which ends on March 31. This is 1.16 per cent more than that of the previous year and this year's GSDP is an all time high for the State since its formation 50 years ago.
The record GSDP growth rate has been linked to good monsoon and improvements in core sector areas. "The State economy has been on an upswing in the current year, with quick estimates projecting a GSDP growth rate of 7.55 per cent against 6.39 per cent in the previous year," Governor Rameshwar Thakur said.
In his customary address to the State Assembly on the inaugural day of the budget session, Rameshwar Thakur said all other economic indicators had also been "very positive" in Andhra Pradesh. Stating that bank credit expansion is an important indicaor of the buoyancy of the economy, he said the credit deposit ratio of scheduled commercial banks in the State rose to 77 per cent as on September 30, 2005 from 62 per cent on September 30, 2003. The CDR for rural branches increased from 86 per cent to 108 per cent during the same period.
The State's compounded annual growth rate of GSDP was 6.26 per cent as against the national average compounded annual growth rate of 5.66 per cent during 1981-91. The agriculture and allied activities registered an annual growth rate of 4.5 per cent during the same period. However, during the decade 1994-2004 (when the TD was in power), the annual growth rate of State's economy fell to 5.5 per cent against the national average of 6.3 per cent.
The Governor indirectly held the previous TD regime responsible for farmer suicides when he stated that the average annual growth rate of agriculture and allied activities fell to 2.3 per cent and that of agriculture alone to minus 0.5 per cent. "This caused an unprecedented agrarian crisis in the State, leading to a great human tragedy in the form of large number of suicides by farmers and rural artisans," Thakur said.
He announced the State government's decision to open superspeciality hospitals in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam.
The software exports from the State also registered a growth rate of 65 per cent this year over 35 per cent recorded last year. The average annual growth rate achieved in software exports in the past three years was 35.79 per cent. Referring to the problem of Naxalites, he said the government regarded it as a socio-economic issue.