VIJAYAWADA: Uttar Pradesh minister and former in charge of BJP Andhra Pradesh Siddharth Nath Singh has opined that decentralisation of executive and legislative functioning, as being proposed by the YSRC government, is not acceptable.
Citing the example of Uttar Pradesh, he added that the State, with 23 crore people, has one capital -- Lucknow -- which was working ‘very well’.
Replying to a query at a press meet here on Wednesday, the MSME, Investment and Textile Minister of UP said, “We are 75 districts with 23 crore people. We are working very well from one capital, Lucknow. Decentralisation is a concept of power not of legislative and executive bodies.
"From my experience, you can’t decentralise them. They need to be together to work. The accepted formula of decentralisation is where regulatory/executive bodies are established at district-level, depending on the need of that particular district. The body can take care of the issues there so that people don’t need to come to the State body. This is an accepted formula, but not executive and legislative decentralisation.”
Meanwhile, BJP leaders staged a protest at Dharna Chowk in Vijayawada against the government’s proposal to relocate the executive capital to Visakhapatnam.
Demanding that Amaravati be developed as proposed, the BJP leaders sat on a 24-hour-long hunger strike from 11.30 am.