VIJAYAWADA: Refuting the ruling YSRC’s allegations that the previous TDP regime resorted to irregularities in the construction of capital city Amaravati and did nothing except for creating an illusion of development through graphics, former chief minister and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu, who chaired a round table conference of leaders of opposition parties and people’s associations on Thursday, said, “State and society are permanent, but not individuals. I can’t do anything in case the people are against Amaravati. I am ready to tender my apology if they feel the project is wrong.”
Showing the video clips of the progress of construction activity at bungalows for High Court judges, apartments for AIS, gazetted and non-gazetted officials, affordable housing for poor, Seed Access road, arterial roads and buildings in administrative capital, where permanent Secretariat and Assembly buildings were constructed, the former chief minister said most of the works would have been completed by now if the YSRC government did not stall them.
Addressing the conference, with the theme “People’s Capital Amaravati - creation of wealth - generation of employment - eradication of poverty’’ here, Naidu, armed with video clippings, explained in detail the development activities carried out in Amaravati during his regime and also a clipping of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy wholeheartedly welcoming the location of capital city in the AP Legislative Assembly in his capacity as the Leader of the Opposition in 2014.
“Everyone should know what happened in Amaravati, the people’s capital city. We are organising this round table to sensitise the public on what happened in the five years of TDP government and in the past six months of the YSRC regime. The responsibility to protect Amaravati is on the five crore people of the State. Amaravati is the future of the next generations. Change of government is common and people will cooperate with responsible governments, but will not tolerate if they act unilaterally on policy matters,’’ he maintained.
Reiterating that Amaravati development was a self-financed project, he said 8,039 acres of land, including 5,020 acres for future needs of the city and another 3,019 acres were kept in reserve. “The value of the reserved land is Rs 1 lakh crore and is expected to increase to Rs 2 lakh crore in future. We planned to take up the entire construction activity in Amaravati with income generated on lands so as to use the revenue coming from here for the welfare and development of all the 13 districts. West Bengal gets 76 per cent of income from Kolkata alone. Similarly, Telangana gets 60 per cent of income from Hyderabad, Odisha 56 per cent from Bhubaneswar, Karnataka 40 per cent from Bengaluru and Tamil Nadu 39 per cent from Chennai. Similarly, we have planned to develop Amaravati as a source of income to fund development of all the 13 districts,’’ Naidu said.
Asserting that the Sivaramakrishnan Committee in its report favoured Amaravati as right location for building the capital city, he said around 50 per cent of people (2,191 of the total 4,728) sent mail to the committee expressing their support to the choice.
While 1,156 mails received by the committee backed Vijayawada - Guntur for capital, 663 favoured Vijayawada and 372 Guntur. A total of 2,191 people gave their opinion in favour of this area. While 507 wanted construction of capital at Visakhapatnam, 360 chose Kurnool, 265 Ongole, 139 Rajahmundry, 113 Tirupati, 116 Donakonda and 1,037 people opted other areas for capital city, he said. Farmers voluntarily gave 33,000 acres of land for capital construction in just 58 days, which, he said, was a world record. Naidu said the Harvard University adopted the land pooling system as a case study and the London School of Economics showered praises on the novel land acquisition for a public project. The Niti Aayog also praised it, the TDP chief said.
Refuting the claim that Amaravati was conceived to benefit only some section of people, he said with the objective of involving everyone in the development of the capital city, his government adopted “people’s capital’’ as its theme.
Taking exception to the allegations that Amaravati was beneficial to a particular caste, he said SCs, BCs, minorities, Kapus, Brahmins and Vysyas constituted 75 per cent of the population in the area.
CPI State secretary K Ramakrishna demanded that the Chief Minister convene an all-party meet on Amaravati. The government should invite Naidu and take his cooperation, he said and suggested that the ruling party leaders desist from comparing the capital project with a burial ground. “Development should be decentralised and all the regions should be developed equally. The Chief Minister should give clarity on the capital and we all should pressure the Centre to achieve the rights of the State,’’ he said.
Jana Sena leader Gurusetty Satyanarayana said his party chief Pawan Kalyan was not against capital construction and only opposed the forcible land acquisition. “Rulers come and go. But, the State is permanent. Development should not be stalled out of spite for Naidu,” he remarked.
Bheesetti Babji of Lok Satta said that it’s unfortunate that Amaravati was being used for political slugfest. Aam Aadmi Party leader KBVV Prasad demanded that the government complete the development works at Amaravati at the earliest.
Resolution
After discussing the development of Amaravati, the round table conference resolved to urge the State government to expedite the works of the capital city without any deviations from the master plan. The meet also adopted another resolution urging the State government to convene an all-party meeting on development of Amaravati