VIJAYAWADA: The state government is all set to make Amaravati, which was proposed as the sole capital of Andhra Pradesh, into a municipal corporation with 19 gram panchayats in two mandals. The corporation will be named Amaravati Capital City Municipal Corporation.
The Guntur district administration issued a notification to this effect and asked the officials concerned to conduct gram sabhas in the 19 villages and elicit opinions of the locals over the formation of the corporation. The local administrations were asked to conduct hearings by taking help of the local revenue and police officials so that law and order is maintained.
According to the notification issued by Guntur district collector Vivek Yadav, the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Commissioner, in January 2020, asked the district administration to conduct public hearings in the 16 villages in Thullur mandal to elicit the opinion of the people there in forming the Amaravati Capital City Municipal Corporation. In the same month, the district administration asked Thullur officials to conduct the public hearings.
Thullur mandal parishad development officer in July 2021 sent a correspondence that the show cause notices were issued to the panchayat secretaries of the said panchayats to hold the public hearings.
However, in view of the prevailing law and order situation then in the capital region, the hearings could not be held and the same was informed to the PR&RD commissioner. On December 16 2021, the commissioner sent a memo to the district administration to hold the public hearings in the 16 gram panchayats in Thullur and also in the three gram panchayats that were not merged in the Mangalagiri-Tadepalli Municipal Corporation and sent the copies of the same along with a detailed report.
In view of this, Vivek Yadav issued a notification asking the MPDOs of Thullur and Mangalagiri to hold public hearings in the 16 gram panchayats of Thullur, along with Kuragallu, Neerukonda and Krishnayapalame, and elicit the opinion of the locals over the merger of their panchayats in the Amaravati Capital City Municipal Corporation. The collector asked the officials to treat the matter ‘urgent’.