HYDERABAD: The AP Government has more or less decided to make Vijayawada the temporary State capital, given its central location and easy access for people from other parts of the State. The nine-member advisory panel on the capital city, headed by Urban Development Minister P Narayana, met Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here Tuesday and discussed the requirements of the new capital.
Naidu asked the committee members to scout for accommodation at or near Vijayawada to house key administrative offices until the infrastructure is in place at the new capital — which will be decided after the Sivaramakrishnan Committee submits its report. Naidu said the ad-hoc capital should have infrastructure facilities to house government departments.
It is learnt that officials were asked to shift the headquarters of various departments to the ad-hoc capital in a phased manner. Once, the permanent capital is in place, transfer of the departmental headquarters could be thought of.
State ministers have already started setting up their offices in Vijayawada and the first to do so was Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao. Now, others like Sidda Raghava Rao and Kamineni Srinivas are also in process of shifting to Vijayawada. Sources said Naidu had directed Chief Secretary IYR Krishna Rao to inspect the IT Towers at Gannavaram for temporary housing of the CMO. Political observers see two reasons for Naidu’s eagerness to shift the administrative set up away from Hyderabad: one, the obvious difficulty in running the State from a place as far as Hyderabad; two, TDP leaders’ discomfiture in facing TRS taunts day in and day out that they are still hanging around in Hyderabad despite State division.
The CM asked the committee to chalk out a plan to make the capital slum-free and brimming with green cover of at least 60%.