Vizag City/Town
From being a small fishing village in the nineteenth century, Vizag has grown into an industrial hub. In the 1970s and the 1980s the city grew rapidly with a lot of investment in the state-owned Hindustan Shipyard Limited, Vizag Steel and other major industries. Economic liberalization in the 1990s brought a modest growth to the city but not as much as it did to the state capital, Hyderabad. The urban sprawl that characterizes other major cities has yet to be seen in Vizag.
Due to the presence of Eastern Naval Command, Steel Plant, HPCL, the city has been the home to people from different parts of the country and due to this the city has a cosmopolitan texture to it.
The city's main commercial and shopping centres are located in the Dwaraka Nagar-RTC Complex area and Jagadamda Junction area. In the recent years since 2000, the Dwaraka Nagar-RTC Complex area has transformed into a commercial hub with new shopping malls and complexes spring up within a radius of 2-3 kilometers.
The major stumbling block for Vizag's industrial progress is its Airport. Vizag's Airport lies in a lowland area and even an overnight shower is enough to make the runway inundated. Making things even worse during the period of heavy monsoon Meghadrigedda lake floods the Airport making it virtually inaccessible for weeks. Another problem has been Smog (Smoke + Fog).
Despite all these challenges Vizag is well connected with daily flights from Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Tirupati, and Raipur. With the entry of several new airlines, Air Sahara, Air Deccan, Kingfisher Airlines, and Paramount Airways operating there along with the state-owned airline Indian, there has been a modest increase in frequency of the flights. Vizag Airport has recently received permission to operate night flights, and is in the process of constructing a new runway 10,000 feet long to accommodate international flights and larger aircraft. Visakhapatnam has a good network of roads.there are frequent buses to vizianagaram,srikakulam,araku and rajahmundry.There are even bus services to hyderabad,vijaywada and few parts of orissa. The city is home to many five star hotels with the presence of Taj group, ITC Welcomegroup & Park hotels group.
There has been a rise in the real estate prices, mainly attributed to the Telangana movement for a separate Telangana state, some speculate on Vizag becoming the next capital. Satyam Computer Services Limited opened software development center in 2007. Recently various other software companies such as Encore India, and Tata Consultancy Services Limited have announced their plans for starting development centers in Vizag, which has also contributed to the rise in real estate prises. Inflows from NRIs from Vizag has further added to this rise.
