Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Minister for IT, Panchayat Raj and Rural Development, Nara Lokesh, said that he wanted to compete with Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in the work, but could not. “I have been working hard and fast to meet my own targets. But, I feel that I am far behind when I see the performance of the Chief Minister. He is ahead of us all,” Lokesh quipped with a smile on his face as he emerged out of the brief Assembly session on Tuesday.

In a chit chat with the media persons in the Assembly corridors, Lokesh said that the next 100 days were very important for him as he was tied up with mobilising HCL and three other IT companies to have their operations in Andhra Pradesh. He said that the HCL is getting ready to have its base in Visakhapatnam, the three other companies have also initially agreed to move to Vizag. He further said that some of the IT employees now working in Hyderabad were also interested in moving to Visakhapatnam. However, he said that the government had to provide facilities for these companies and employees in the next 100 days.

The Minister said that the government in the next 100 days would provide 15000 jobs in the IT sector starting with the HCL. He expressed confidence that he would be able to handle this great plan and turn Visakhapatnam as the next destination for the IT industry.