The Andhra Pradesh government tread cautiously on the proposed ‘three capitals’ by resolving in the Cabinet meeting on Friday to constitute a high-power committee to examine both the recommendations of a team of experts led by retired IAS officer G.N. Rao and the findings of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which is expected to submit its report in the first week of January 2020, and pick the best of them. The members of the high-power committee have not been announced yet.
The government did not make the much-anticipated declaration of Amaravati, Visakhapatnam and Kurnool as Legislative, Executive and Judicial capital cities.
The move was vehemently opposed by farmers who had parted with about 33,000 acres under the pooling scheme, and the Opposition parties, mainly the Telugu Desam Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which insisted that decentralisation of development (not administration) was the need of the hour.
“Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy did not want to make a hasty announcement because he is aware of the concerns raised by farmers in Amaravati and he is committed to doing justice to them and also elicit the opinion of all other stakeholders before going ahead with a particular plan,” said Information and Public Relations and Transport (I&PR) Perni Venkataramaiah.
Report discussed
Briefing mediapersons on the outcome of Cabinet meeting held at the Secretariat, Mr. Venkataramaiah said the Council of Ministers had also deliberated on the Sivaramakrishnan Committee report and the prevailing situation arising from Mr. Jagan’s statement in the Assembly on December 17 on the separate capitals and the recommendations of the G.N. Rao panel.
It has been decided to carefully weigh the options after BCG report is also out so that the problem of farmers in Guntur district who gave their lands under the pooling scheme during the TDP regime could be solved and the aspirations of other regions could be given due consideration, the Minister said.
Corruption
On alleged “insider trading” in Amaravati, Mr. Venkataramaiah said the Cabinet decided to hand over the investigation to the Lokayukta, CBI or the CB-CID after taking legal advice.
He said a Cabinet sub-committee which looked into the matter, came up with concrete evidence of the large-scale purchase of lands by elected representatives, individuals who were close to the former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, some companies in which he (Mr. Naidu) owned shares and several benami transactions a few months before Amaravati was declared as the capital in December 2014. Details of those who resorted to insider trading and dared the government to institute an inquiry would eventually come out, he said.
