Andhra CM Naidu Pushes Investment Protection Law, Inks ₹9.89 Lakh Crore MoUs

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu moved on Thursday to insulate corporate capital from political shifts, announcing a state investment protection law while penning 303 preliminary pacts worth ₹9.89 lakh crore.

Political vendetta kills balance sheets. Addressing the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Partnership Summit, Naidu tackled head-on the chronic private sector dread that long-term industrial projects will face cancellation or harassment whenever state governments change hands.

He turned directly to Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, who chaired the summit, to demand national backing.

Naidu called on the Union government to formulate a overarching Central Investment Protection Act, arguing that nationwide regulatory immunity from partisan disruption would unlock deep pools of foreign institutional finance. Capricious policy reversals, he cautioned, continue to rattle boardrooms across the country.

Shielding Balance Sheets From Regime Change

Policy continuity remains the primary anxiety for capital-intensive enterprises in Andhra Pradesh. Contracts, land allocations, and state incentives have routinely been halted, contested, or scrapped by incoming administrations over the past decade.

By codifying legal guarantees into statutory law, the administration aims to remove administrative discretion from contract enforcement. State officials are drafting the bill, which will head to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly for passage before landing on desk of the Central government for formal assent.

Goyal listened as Naidu pressed him to champion the framework before the Union Cabinet. A national umbrella statute, Naidu argued, would create standard operating protections across all 28 states, eliminating jurisdictional risks for foreign direct investment.

Capital Pipeline and Implementation Numbers

Beyond the proposed statute, the state deployed raw numbers to demonstrate industrial traction. The 303 newly signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) push Andhra Pradesh's total investment commitments over the past two-and-a-half years to ₹32.49 lakh crore.

Conversion rates matter far more than ceremonial signing stages. Since June 2024, the state has logged 714 MoUs representing ₹22.6 lakh crore in pledged outlay. Out of those, 526 industrial projects valued at ₹17.1 lakh crore have advanced into execution pipelines, registering a 74 percent conversion rate.

Work has already begun on projects totaling ₹7.3 lakh crore across the state's industrial corridors. To prevent commitments from stagnating in bureaucratic limbo, the state administration fixed mandatory delivery timelines for nearly 303 individual projects.

Legislators will take up the draft Investment Protection Act during the upcoming session of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, after which the state cabinet plans to submit the legislation to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi.