Rising investments sign of changing perceptions of Telangana, says KTR

People who differed on the demand for a separate Telangana 10 years ago are now highly supportive of the new State, said KTR

Hyderabad: Telangana moved a step closer to its efforts to become the country’s hub for electric vehicles and sustainable mobility, with the foundation being laid for one of India’s largest, and the State’s first lithium-ion battery gigafactory on Saturday.

The Amara Raja Giga Corridor for Lithium Cell and Battery Pack Manufacturing will come up in Divitipalli of Mahbubnagar, with the unit to have a capacity of up to 16 GWh and cater to Indian and international markets.

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Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao said people who differed on the demand for a separate Telangana 10 years ago were now highly supportive of the young State and appreciative of its development on a massive scale. Telangana was now competing not just with other States on multiple fronts, but with other countries as well.

The interest shown by the Amara Raja Group was a classic example of the changing perception of investors towards Telangana. The company will be investing Rs.9,500 crore over the next 10 years, including on a research facility in Hyderabad. It will be the country’s largest investment in the lithium-ion cell manufacturing sector, he said, adding that the facility would generate about 10,000 direct and indirect job opportunities.

He recalled that Galla Aruna Kumari from the Amara Raja group, who was a former Minister in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, was one of the leaders who sounded highly sceptical of the demand for Statehood. Many a time, she questioned the need for a separate Telangana whenever he met her as a legislator in the Assembly corridors, he said, adding that she was now fully convinced that it was a pressing need of the day.

The success of the Telangana experiment had disproved all its critics, with the State becoming the most favoured destination for big investors like Amara Raja Batteries. As many as eight States had vied for the lithium-ion battery factory and their Chief Ministers had showered offers to lure the group to their States, but Divitipalli became their ultimate destination.

Having a gigafactory in Telangana would help fulfil the aspirations of the State to become an electric vehicle manufacturing hub and spearhead the EV revolution in India, he said, pointing out that the needs of industrial units coming up in the State were being met with priority. The industrial growth was made possible with a transparent policy. Investors were looking at Telangana as their needs such as manpower, land, power and water were being met promptly and they were happy as all this involved no bribes.

Rubbishing criticism that the battery industry would add to pollution in Divitipalli, the Minister assured that the Amara Raja facility involved zero pollution as was the case with their facility at Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh. If anyone had doubts, they could visit the unit to know things for themselves with the visits to be facilitated with special buses, he said.

The State government had recently entered into an MoU with Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (ARACT) a wholly owned subsidiary of ARBL, which has been working on Li-ion cell chemistries specifically suited for Indian subcontinent conditions and already supplies lithium battery packs and chargers to some two and three-wheeler OEMs.

The ground-breaking ceremony also marked the beginning of the Amara Raja Giga Corridor that aims to produce lithium cell and battery packs with an ultimate capacity of up to 16GWh and up to 5 GWh respectively. The initial facilities would also include a first-of-its-kind advanced energy research and innovation center, dubbed the Amara Raja E Ve Energy Labs, which will have advanced laboratories and testing infrastructure for material research, prototyping, product life cycle analysis and Proof of Concept demonstration.

Amara Raja Group founder Dr. Ramachandra N Galla, ARBL Executive Director Vikramadithya Gourineni and ARBL Chairman and Managing Director Jayadev Galla also spoke.