Hyderabad, March 23: Andhra Pradesh has surpassed Bihar in urban crime, according to a recent survey made by the Andhra home ministry.

The survey says for every person abducted in Bihar, there were three or even more kidnapped in Andhra Pradesh. ?It appears that Laloo Prasad Yadav?s Bihar is comparatively safer than Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy?s Andhra Pradesh,? says a senior police official.

Police records show 800 women and girls were among 1,014 persons abducted in the state last year. ?Almost 80 per cent of them were in the state capital Hyderabad, the pilgrim centre of Tirupati, the port city of Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada,? says a police source.

Police say the statistics appears to be in contrast with 350 cases of abductions in Bihar last year. Most abductions in the city were either for land or ransom. ?During the last two months, there were 256 abductions in the state,? they say.

Police say schoolchildren are easy targets for abduction. ?The captors are satisfied with smaller ransoms of Rs 50,000 or less,? say the police. Hyderabad has witnessed almost 210 abductions of businessmen and schoolchildren during 2004.

Hyderabad has also witnessed two killings on court premises in daylight in the last two years. ?In both the instances ? in the Rangareddy court complex and in the civil courts at Nampally ? the victims were involved in previous murders and were out on bail.?

Police say the state has also become home to criminal gangs from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. ?Hyderabad is being seen as a safe haven for collecting ransom,? a police official said.

The deteriorating law and order has also kept industrial infrastructure away from the state. Volkswagen and Tata Steel, which made initial enquiries and also showed a keen interest to invest in the state, have now developed cold feet.

The state had attracted nearly Rs 4,500 crore in investment during 2004 but hopes are pinned on major projects during the current year to double the prospects.

?But everything depends on how the government resolves the law and order situation in the state,? says a senior adviser to the state government on industrial investment.

Besides the deteriorating law and order situation, Maoist violence targeting industrialists and businessmen has also increased. The survey has also revealed that almost 21 per cent of the crimes ? kidnappings, ransom or attacks ? were on information technology workers in the city.

?Either they were attacked by rivals or by loan sharks for delay in payments.? IT workers returning home late at night have also been victims of muggers, the survey says.

Industry minister B. Satyanarayana, who was upbeat on new investments, has now turned cautious. ?Let them finally come, only then will we announce it,? he said on the occasion of French car manufacturer Renault?s visit to Hyderabad two weeks ago.

World Bank officials who visited the state last fortnight have also been critical of the deteriorating law and order situation in the Congress regime. The statistics reeled out by the home ministry did not impress them. ?The year-on-year security environment shows slackness and needs to be toned up,? a World Bank official told the state?s bureaucrats, hinting that things were better in the previous regime.

The outcome of the growth of criminal atmosphere has been the idle infrastructure in the state capital. ?Almost half a million square feet of constructed area is lying vacant in the state capital because of threat of crime,? says Shekhar Reddy, an office bearer of the Andhra Pradesh Builders? association. But building activity is still brisk allegedly because of the flow of black money into the construction industry.