Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at the Parliament before presenting the Union Budget on February 1, 2026.
| Photo Credit: PTI
A dedicated Rare Earth Corridor (REC) to promote mining, processing, research and manufacturing on rare earths, and two High Speed Rail Corridors (HSRC) which were announced in the Budget will benefit Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra is one of the four mineral-rich States, the other three being Odisha, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, where the Centre intends to support RECs as an extension to the Scheme for Rare Earth Permanent Magnets launched in November 2025.
Also read | Budget 2026 LIVE
The Ministry of Mines found significant reserves of rare earth elements in Andhra, and in 2024, some blocks were given to the State government by the Geological Survey of India for auction for exploration.
In the HSRCs, Andhra will gain in the form of investments that will be made in the Hyderabad-Bengaluru, and Hyderabad-Chennai corridors. The major stations in Andhra that fall in these corridors are Kurnool, Dhone, Guntakal, Anantapur, Dharmavaram, Hindupur, Tadipatri, Yerraguntla, Kadapa, Rajampet, and Renigunta.
Tax holiday
The hyperscale data centre proposed to be set up by Google in Visakhapatnam through its subsidiary Raiden Infotech Limited will also get a boost. For such critical infrastructure projects, the Centre has offered “a tax holiday till 2047 to any foreign company that provides cloud services to customers globally by using data centre services from India”, subject to the condition that it should provide services to Indian customers through an Indian reseller entity.
Besides, a majority of the cities in Andhra with population above five lakh will get continued funding under various initiatives for large-scale enhancement of public infrastructure, including through new financing instruments such as Infrastructure Investment Trusts, Real Estate Investment Trusts and institutions such as NIIF and NABFID.
The Centre will support the development of bird-watching trails along the Pulikat Lake in Andhra and Tamil Nadu, and an ecological mountain trail in Araku Valley in order to give a boost to the ecotourism sector.
Published – February 01, 2026 03:23 pm IST
