Rayalaseema: India’s new industrial hub

Chronic drought and resultant famines have been an integral part of Rayalaseema, with the region having some of the driest places in India.However, the economic landscape here has undergone a perceptible transformation in the last decade and a half, as some mega manufacturing industries have started moving in with huge investments. Except agriculture and horticulture, which flourished in isolated pockets, Rayalaseema never had any major industrial activity to boast of, but this is rapidly changing and in no small measure.Numerous cotton ginning and pressing, textile mills, and mineral-based units were the earliest industries to come to the region in the mid-20th century. Multiple large-scale industries, including the State-owned Rayalaseema Thermal Power Plant, the cement plants of Dalmia Bharat and Zuari in the Kadapa-Kurnool belt, and a clutch of renewable energy projects such as the ultra-mega solar parks in the Kadapa and Kurnool districts, were established subsequently.After a big gap thereafter, the stage has been set for yet another tranche of massive investments, the most prominent being the integrated steel plant being built by the JSW Group in Kadapa district; a string of defence sector projects namely the DRDO’s Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft integration and flight testing centre at Puttaparthi, Bharat Forge’s defence energetics facility in Madakasira, and a high-precision ammunition making unit of HFCL in Sri Sathya Sai district; and the Royal Enfield manufacturing plant near Tirupati. Then there is the Space City poised to take shape close to the country’s only rocket launchpad at Sriharikota.These are only a few projects turning parts of the Rayalaseema region into a manufacturing hub.A gradual boomDue to its location in the rain shadow area of the Deccan plateau and the consequent inability to fully capture the bountiful rains which the southwest and northeast monsoons normally bring, the Rayalaseema region had for centuries been starved.However, over the years, the same vast tracts of barren lands, which entrepreneurs would not even look at, became beehives of industrial activity as the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government of 2014-19 and the present TDP-led ruling coalition offered attractive incentives and created the necessary infrastructure that brought about an industrial revolution of sorts in this resource-rich yet parched region.The establishment of India’s only KIA Motors’ car manufacturing plant in Anantapur (the site is now in Sri Sathya Sai district) in 2019 was a trigger for the steady flow of big-ticket investments into this region. Royal Enfield’s entry into Tirupati from Tamil Nadu, which is the only State where Eicher Motors is currently making the iconic motorcycles, complements the existing automotive ecosystem in Anantapur, positioning the region as a growing hub for vehicle manufacturing.What clearly clinched all these projects is the government’s focus on ‘ease of doing business’, and its subsequent evolution into the ‘speed of doing business’, and the untiring efforts made by the government through the State Investment Promotion Board to promote Rayalaseema as an investment destination.While going the whole hog in rolling out the red carpet to investors across the industrial manufacturing spectrum, the government now has its sights fixed on consolidating the region’s leadership in the production of horticulture crops. Accordingly, the food processing sector is being aggressively promoted.Looking back, it was the JSW Group’s Rayalaseema Steel Plant, for which the foundation was laid on July 3, which gave a fillip to the industrialisation of this region; its investment roll-out for Phase-I is ₹4,500 crore (1 MTPA capacity) out of the overall proposed investment of ₹16,350 crore.From then on, several new major industries started taking tangible shape in Sri City, adding up to the ‘core manufacturing sector’ in Rayalaseema that gained momentum.The present government has essentially gone all out to woo investors to this region that was jinxed for decades and the positive outcome of its efforts can be seen in the fact that these projects which were once only on paper have started translating into reality. Published - July 28, 2026 01:09 am IST