Visakhapatnam, Kadapa, Srikalahasti, Krishnapatnam and Orvakal will be developed as “five industrial capitals” of Andhra Pradesh under the aegis of the Central government, and nearly 1.25 crore jobs will be created in these cities, BJP State president Somu Veerraju has said.
Addressing the media at Dachepalli in Guntur district on Sunday, Mr. Veerraju ridiculed former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for failing to develop Amaravati as the capital city and his successor Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy for coming up with the impracticable idea of three capitals.
The BJP leader also questioned what prompted the YSRCP to resort to “glaring malpractices” in the panchayat elections if the government’s claims to have won the peoples’ heart by implementing various welfare schemes were true.
Mr. Veerraju said the TDP and YSRCP governments had done little for the development of the State, and asserted that the credit for the progress achieved by the State entirely went to the Central government.
“Andhra Pradesh has 975-km-long coastline, but its potential has remained largely untapped as not a single port has been built post bifurcation. As a consequence, fisheries trade has achieved no growth worth mentioning,” he said.
Mr. Veerraju said the Central government had given ₹30,000 crore for 20 schemes to the State under the MGNREGS and another ₹20,000 crore was in the pipeline.
As far as the other projects were concerned, the Centre gave AIIMS, got flyovers constructed in Vijayawada, expanded four-lane roads into six-lane highways and did many things that no party could accomplish in the past, Mr. Veerraju stated, and added that the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant would not be allowed to be privatised at any cost.
