Minister for Municipal Administration, Botsa Satyanarayana, was at it again. He made quite interesting comments on Amaravati, the new capital of the State.
While nothing much is done in this area and the new government, unlike its predecessor, has stopped all the works for a review, the Minister’s statement on the issue is raking up a fresh discussion across the state.
The Minister said that an expert committee, which is looking into the Amaravati land deals and the on-going works, will also study the demands from the people on relocation of capital or High Court.
A similar exercise was doney by Sivaramakrishnan Committee at the time of bifurcation. The committee had strongly recommended against locating the capital between Vijayawada and Guntur.
However, Chandrababu Naidu government had preferred the present location and had destroyed the multi-crop agriculture land. It was the vegetable bowl for Vijayawada before the lands were taken by Chandrababu Naidu government.
The area is also flood prone with Kondaveeti Vagu (a stream) inundating almost 75 per cent of the capital area at least once in every 10 years. Besides, floods to river Krishna also pose inundation threat to the capital.
Above all these, the soil is too loose and not suitable for construction of multi-storeyed buildings. The government would have to spend huge amount on foundation alone for the multi-storeyed buildings, which the present government thinks is waste of money.
In this backdrop, Botsa Satyanarayana’s statement that the expert committee would also examine the location and other issues, raising doubts over the government’s intentions of shifting the capital.