A leading English business daily in its October 16 editorial has hailed Visakhapatnam as ‘the Shenzhen of India’ highlighting the untapped potential that exists in the city. Incidentally, for a long time I felt that Vizag was the Mumbai of the East Coast.

The newspaper that I have referred to, in fact, went some steps further to substantiate its contention. Now that Google has zeroed in on Vizag, where it will be locating its AI data centre, the steel city is back in focus having drawn global media attention.

It should be noted that way back in 1953, it was an important contender to be the capital of the newly formed Andhra state. However, by 1956, following the formation of Andhra Pradesh and the capital shifting to Hyderabad, Vizag started losing its significance.

It did not get the attention it deserved in the undivided Andhra Pradesh though several public sector undertakings and defence establishments were located there, which helped it acquire a cosmopolitan culture.

Meanwhile, even after the state was bifurcated it was left neglected for all the wrong reasons. The first five years of the residual Andhra Pradesh’s focus was somewhere else, while the next five years saw concerted efforts to build palatial buildings and grabbing land.

Now the focus has shifted to the city, thanks largely because it will house the Google AI data centre, its biggest such facility outside of the United States.

In the meanwhile, Google’s announcement has sparked a tweet war between ministers from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka with a minister from the latter accusing Andhra Pradesh government of having liberally given away unsustainable concessions purely for landing up with the prized Google catch.

Let us look at this allegation of the Karnataka minister. I asked Grok about the economic size of the Alphabet company of which Google is a part and the latest GDP figures of Andhra Pradesh.

The 2024 revenues of Alphabet stood at a staggering $350 billion, whereas the GDP of Andhra Pradesh for the same period was $171 billion, implying that Alphabet is more than two times larger than AP’s economy. It is seemingly laughable to say that a company of such a magnitude would decide to locate an important facility based on an offer that came with a concession of a few thousand crore. In any case most of the southern States are drowning in debt and any such promises can only be on paper.

I am sure that any company before locating its major facility would undertake a detailed study of the ins and outs of the intended location and make an appropriate assessment of the financial status of the government that is offering such concessions.

Then what could have tilted the decision in favour of Vizag? If the company has decided to locate its facility in its bid to cater to the southeast Asian economies, then Vizag, lying in the East Coast, will be an automatic choice. Of the other two possible contenders, Kolkata is in a deep slumber after having been the country’s capital till the turn of the 20th century, and with threats of banning Hindi movies and over emphasis on language identity, while Chennai has become anything but cosmopolitan.

The fact that Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is an important ally in the NDA should have made the Centre to throw its weight for the project’s location at Vizag. Of course, it has drawn criticism with some contending that data centre is water and energy intensive and can create major ecological consequences. There is no way the state government would be able to fulfil both needs of the company since that would be a political suicidal for any government. They cannot keep the whole state in the dark and supply electricity to a facility like this. Same goes with water.

I am sure the company might have done its homework in this regard. Maybe they will go for a massive desalination plant, which could be one of the reasons for its location on the coast, quite like energy captive solar or wind facilities.

Vizag has a rich hinterland not just of Andhra Pradesh but the mineral rich Chhattisgarh and Odisha. With the naxalite movement on the wane, any plan to develop Vizag should have a blueprint to tap the rich mineral hinterland. With Chennai harbour as a link, Andhra Pradesh has developed a huge manufacturing facility, Sri City, in the border districts of Chittor and Nellore.

Having said so, I feel that there is a need for a similar privately managed huge industrial estate in Vizag, where many chemical and pharma companies are already setting up units.

A strong regulatory mechanism is required so that the likelihood of a recurrence of the type of poisonous gas leak that happened a few years back is avoided.

Gaining on the decision of Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG) to locate a premier hospital facility in the city, the authorities must create a medical hub at Vizag.

Riding on the Google AI data centre boost, Visakhapatnam has bounced back. It is for the government to take it forward from here and make it the Shenzhen of India by tapping its potential in a planned way and going about the implementation part in letter and spirit.

(The writer is a former Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh)