ITC Limited chairman Yogi C Deveshwar announced today that the company has lined up Rs 8,000-crore investments in the state of Telangana for ongoing as well as new projects.

These investments will go into projects including the doubling of capacity to 1 million tonnes of its paper manufacturing plant at Bhadrachlam, Rs 1,000 crore on a second star hotel project in the Hyderabad city's IT hub and about Rs 800 crore on a large food processing park to be set up outside the city.

New ITC Hotel

The Group, would build another hotel in Hyderabad, in Cyberabad area with an investment of Rs.1,000 crore. Like the other hotels of the famous group, including the existing one in the city, the proposed too would be an eco-friendly hotel and certified for the green initiatives.

Led by Y.C. Deveshwar, chairman of ITC group, captains of industry reaffirmed their commitment to invest in Telangana at the launch of the State's new industrial policy. Hailing the Chief Minister and his team for demonstrating the capacity to Make in India and pursue Telangana's industrialization process, Mr. Deveshwar announced that the ITC Group will invest Rs.8,000 crore in the State.

"As a commitment from ITC we assure you that we will be investing Rs 8000 crore in the state of Telangana. We will expand our paper plant capacity and set up a new hotel in Hyderabad," Yogi Deveshwar said during the launch of Telangana's new Industrial policy here. 

Apart from the ongoing investments, the Group, which is into 13 businesses, will set up a world-class food processing facility in Medak with an investment of over Rs.800 crore. It will immensely benefit the farmers, he said.

"Now I understand as to why these leaders fought for a separate statehood for Telangana. It is to bring more focus on to the issues of development in the service of people," the visibly impressed Deveshwar said while announcing the investment plans at the launch of Telangana government's new industrial policy. While complimenting the government for giving due thrust on manufacturing sector, the ITC chairman, however, said competitiveness is equally important to achieve the objective: "If you can not create competitiveness the people of Telangana or people elsewhere in India will not get access to new jobs".

He cited instances where, according to him, about 85 per cent of incense sticks are now imported from Vietnam and the domestic market is being flooded by Japanese notebooks because these items were reserved for small scale sector.

The new industrial policy promises super fast single window approvals and zero tolerance to corruption. Later talking to PTI on the sidelines, he said paper plant expansion itself would need around Rs 4,500 crore.