Andhra Pradesh to set up tech park for women entrepreneurs: Naidu

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday announced plans to set up a dedicated technology park for women entrepreneurs, offering free land and incentives. He also said the government would sponsor five women business leaders to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos.

Addressing the Women and Growth Summit 2026, organised as part of the CII Partnership Summit, Naidu said the government aimed to increase women’s workforce participation in the State from the present 35.8 per cent to 50 per cent.

He said 1.13 crore women were part of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in Andhra Pradesh, which collectively managed a corpus of Rs 30,000 crore and generated an annual turnover of nearly Rs 1 lakh crore. The groups had a loan repayment rate of 99.6 per cent, he added, and the “Swayam AP” brand was helping them access markets for their products.

Naidu said 60,000 house site pattas, valued at Rs 50,000 crore, had recently been registered in women’s names in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Mangalagiri to strengthen their financial security. He urged corporate leaders to adopt underprivileged families under the Public-Private-People Partnership (P4) model to address income disparities.

Calling for 50 per cent representation of women at the next CII summit, he said emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, drones and semiconductors offered significant opportunities for women. The proposed semiconductor hub in Tirupati would open up more avenues for their participation, he added.

Former Union Minister Smriti Irani stressed the need for women-led transformation across economic sectors. CII President-designate Suchitra Ella credited Naidu’s policy vision with helping Hyderabad emerge as an IT and biotechnology hub. She recalled that Bharat Biotech was established in 1996 under his guidance.