A delegation of the Amaravati Parirakshana Mahila JAC met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at Jekkula Nekkalam village of Gannavaram constituency in Krishna district on Wednesday to draw her attention to the capital issue.
Members of the delegation said that Amaravati should remain as “one and only capital of Andhra Pradesh.”
“The Chief Minister is trying to destroy the capital and divide the State into three parts, which is not acceptable to the five-crore people of the State,” they told the Union Minister.
They said that the farmers of the region had given 33,000 acres of land for construction of the new capital. The women of the region had been protesting for the last 295 days, but the government was adamant on its stand, they complained. They also said that all the political parties, including the BJP, wanted that Amaravati be continued as the capital.
Sunkara Padmasree (Congress), Akkineni Vanaja (CPI), Gadde Anuradha and Usha Rani (TDP) and Malathi (Lok Satta) were among those who met Ms. Sitharaman.
Farmers seek support price
Farmers too met Ms. Sitharaman at the village and apprised her of the problems they faced in selling the produce. They also brought to her notice the absence of Minimum Support Price for the crops.
Informing Ms. Sitharaman that the farmers of Jakkula Nekkalam, Gudavalli, Kesarapalli and Nidamanuru villages cultivated paddy and sugarcane, they explained her their difficulty in selling the produce as there were obstacles that needed to be removed.
Pointing out that labour cost had gone up, they said banks denied them loans, which further compounded their woes. The farmers appealed to the Union Finance Minister to ensure immediate steps for payment of ₹2,000 per quintal as support price for paddy.
The Union Minister was accompanied by BJP leaders Kanna Lakshminarayana and P.V.N. Madhav.
