What’s wrong in making Vizag as executive capital?, asks Botsa

Visakhapatnam: Education minister Botsa Satyanarayana has wondered what’s wrong in making Visakhapatnam the executive capital of Andhra Pradesh. Addressing a round table meeting on `Decentralisation and three capitals for Andhra Pradesh‘ here on Sunday, he asked the opposition parties if they were against the development of north Andhra. There was no objection to having a […]

Visakhapatnam: Education minister Botsa Satyanarayana has wondered what’s wrong in making Visakhapatnam the executive capital of Andhra Pradesh.

Addressing a round table meeting on `Decentralisation and three capitals for Andhra Pradesh‘ here on Sunday, he asked the opposition parties if they were against the development of north Andhra. There was no objection to having a single capital but three capitals for three different regions would trigger rapid development, he explained.

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“The expenditure will be on the high side for one capital –something like Rs.1.09 lakh crore at a conservative estimate. Of this, Rs.400 crore would go to the architect company alone. It costs Rs.10000 crore more against the normal Rs.3,000 crore for a capital to come up in an area of 29 villages. We can’t afford to waste so much money,” he said.

Assuring that all the government agreements on the capital issue would be honoured, the minister reiterated that Visakhapatnam city was ideal for an executive capital. While everybody had a right to express their view in a democracy, the realtors of Amaravati were imposing their opinion on five crore people and Chandrababu Naidu was working for their benefit, he said, demanding that the Telugu Desam Party president make public his agreement with the realtors.

Visakhapatnam South MLA Vasupalli Ganesh Kumar recalled that Dr. BR Ambedkar in 1960 had suggested two capitals for the country, with the second one at Hyderabad. Making Vizag the executive capital would cut down on expenditure drastically. Former Vice-Chancellor of Acharya Nagarjuna University V. Balamohan Das said that the Sivaramakrishnan Committee on the capital issue had clearly said that the Amaravati should not be the capital. Vizag was well-connected by air, rail, land and sea, he pointed out.

Deputy Chief Minister Budi Mutyala Naidu, IT minister Gudivada Amarnath and others were present.