amaravati

Amaravati stays as Capital of Andhra Pradesh

Botsa Satyanarayana, the minister for Municipal Administration, whose statements on the future of Amaravati created doubts over whether the yet-to-be-developed city will be the capital of Andhra Pradesh, has cleared the air. In a written reply to the Legislative Council, Satyanarayana has said there is no proposal to shift the state capital. 

Since Jaganmohan Reddy took over in May this year, work on the Amaravati capital project has come to a standstill. The CM had alleged insider trading and corruption in the project, accusing senior Telugu Desam leaders of having made money. The Singapore consortium pulled out of the project as did the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Amaravati today is not a work in a progress but just the centre of administration in the form of secretariat and assembly buildings. 

Satyanarayana’s reply comes as a surprise because the government had constituted the GN Rao expert committee to look into the feasibility of continuing with Amaravati as the capital city. The committee submitted its report to the CM last month. 

Incidentally, just a few days ago, Satyanarayana had described Amaravati as a burial ground. The comment had drawn flak from Chandrababu Naidu.

Rural Development minister Peddireddy Ramchandra Reddy told Filter Kaapi that the government is stuck with Amaravati as it has no money to spend to develop a capital of the size and magnificence that Chandrababu Naidu envisaged nor can it completely dump the project and move to another place. Despite being cash-strapped, Naidu had estimated that Andhra Pradesh would spend Rs 50000 crore to build a world-class capital in Amaravati. 

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