VISAKHAPATNAM: Amid speculation of shifting capital from Amaravati, Municipal Administration Minister Botcha Satyanarayana has said the YSRC government wants to build a capital that will be acceptable to five crore people of the State.
Speaking to mediapersons here on Wednesday, Satyanarayana said an expert committee on capital would tour all the 13 districts and seek suggestions and opinions of people. The committee has been asked to submit its report within six weeks and based on its recommendation, the government will take a decision on the capital, he maintained.
Satyanarayana said the previous TDP government ignored the Sivaramakrishnan Committee recommendation on capital and went ahead with the report of the Narayana committee. "Chandrababu Naidu, during his five year rule, did not even construct a single permanent structure in the capital region. For the construction of temporary structures, the TDP government has spent Rs 10,000 per sqft while it was between Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,000 in other cities such as Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Vijayawada," he said and added that at least 100 feet should be dug for the foundation for the constructions in Amaravati, while it will be only five to 50 feet in other places.
"The Naidu government has pushed the State into debt trap by taking Rs 1,65,000 crore loans. Dues of Rs 50,000 crore to contractors of various works are pending," Satyanarayana said. He alleged that the former chief minister was more worried about the interests of his kith and kin and party leaders, who bought huge tracts of land in the capital region. He alleged Naidu wasted five years and tried only to build his own image, not the capital.
There was large scale insider trading in capital region. Some persons have 25,000 square yards of land. The land was bought from SC and backward class people by some persons even before the capital was announced, the minister alleged.
Stating that much importance need not be attached to land pooling for capital, he said people anywhere would be ready to give thousands of acres if their area is going to be developed as capital.