State can achieve 15% growth rate by focusing on water, jobs and farming: Chandrababu Naidu

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu expressed confidence that the State could achieve 15% growth rate with focus on the optimum utilisation of water resources, employment generation and increasing agriculture productivity through adoption of modern technologies wherever required. 

Best practices in governance should be implemented from the district level to provide better administration so that people would be satisfied, Mr. Naidu exhorted the officials. 

Delivering the inaugural speech at the two-day Collectors’ Conference at the Secretariat on Wednesday (December 17, 2025), Mr. Naidu said ‘speed of delivering governance’ was crucial and the people’s representatives play a significant role in realising the objectives. 

Mr. Naidu said feedback was being obtained from the public and unless the issues raised by them were promptly sorted out and their problems solved, the government would not be able to make meaningful progress. The government was constantly monitoring the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to make necessary course corrections and suggesting that this would be possible only when officials from grassroot level up to the Collectors discharged their duties effectively, he observed. 

Further, Mr. Naidu stressed the need for a proper work culture in the government, wherein the officials should clear the files promptly so that the administration would be smooth. A situation in which files were forwarded to others without resolving them was prevalent in the Revenue Department. This should change as otherwise the people would face difficulties, he said, and ordered that decisions be taken through data-driven governance.

The government revived several Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) that became defunct due to the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) Government’s negligence. Mr. Naidu said the government gave equal importance to development and welfare and fulfilled all major promises given to the people in the run-up to the 2024 elections. Investments worth ₹11.20 lakh crore were secured at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Partnership Summit held in Visakhapatnam last month as the State’s brand image has been resurrected by the coalition government, he asserted. 

Mr. Naidu said the medical colleges being built under the Public–Private Partnership (PPP) model would function as government colleges and be regulated by the government, so it was wrong to say that these colleges were in the process of privatization. 

“The YSRCP Government raised loans at high interest rates (upto 14%) thereby causing tremendous strain on the State’s finances. We are now easing that burden by rescheduling the loans,” Mr. Naidu added.