BJP State president Kanna Lakshminarayana has called the proposed shifting of the administrative capital to Visakhapatnam as a disastrous idea.
The government seemed to have taken the decision keeping other considerations in mind and not on the basis of the G.N. Rao Committee report, Mr. Lakshminarayana said in a letter to Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday.
He demanded that both the Legislative and Executive capitals be retained in Amaravati.
Mr. Lakshminarayana said the government had apparently set aside the important comments and words of caution by the G.N. Rao Committee on the conditions in Visakhapatnam such as threat of cyclones, decreasing air quality due to industrial pollution, leakages of crude oil in the port area, security threat to the Eastern Naval Command, and non-availability of government land.
He alleged that the State government had suppressed the committee’s observations and comments on the unsuitability of Visakhapatnam as the administrative capital.
Mr. Lakshminarayana expressed regret that the government was going ahead with decentralisation in spite of protests and agitations from all sections of people, political parties and several civil society organisations.
The BJP had been demanding decentralisation of development and not administration, which would be highly inconvenient to the people of the State.
‘Huge burden’
Also, the whole idea would impose a huge financial burden on the already debt-trapped State, he said.
The government should respect the opinion of the people and the political parties, and give up its “ill-conceived proposal’ to have three capitals on the pretext of decentralisation, he said.
