The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has demanded that the government stop the sale of public properties under the pretext of ‘Build AP.’
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, TDP leader and former Minister Nakka Anand Babu said the government was determined to go ahead with the sale public properties but without any concrete plan to develop the State.
The ‘Build AP’ programme is “a conspiracy” to rob the people of Andhra Pradesh by “grabbing” prime land. Already a few land parcels were being sold in Visakhapatnam and Guntur, Mr. Anand Babu alleged.
Citing an example, the former Minister said land belonging to the Labour Department in Guntur city was allotted for the construction a new division of the Government General Hospital by the previous government. The YSRCP government, now, had put up the same land parcel for sale ignoring the medical and health requirements of people.
Mr. Anand Babu wondered how the government could sell land at a time when the State was under lockdown and activity in several sectors, including real estate, had coming to a grinding halt.
Meanwhile, BJP State president Kanna Lakshminarayana demanded that the proposed sale of nine land parcels in Guntur and Visakhapatnam owned by the government should be cancelled, saying that the sacred principle of public finance management was not to liquidate assets for unproductive expenditures.
In a letter to Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Mr. Lakshminarayana said if the government keeps selling its assets one after another, it would be harming the interests of future generations.
He pointed out that the Chandrababu Naidu government had committed a blunder by mortgaging assets for funding its populist schemes. As a consequence, the State’s financial position took a severe beating.
‘Explore alternatives’
The CPI and the CPI (M), in separate statements, demanded that the government drop the move immediately.
CPI(M) State secretary P. Madhu said the government was resorting to real estate business by planning to sell prime properties through e-auction. It would seriously impact the social needs in future. The government should explore other options for mobilising funds, he added.
CPI State secretary K. Ramakrishna said ‘Navaratnalu’ should be a continuous process. If Mr. Jagan were sincere, he should try to get the Special Category Status and the funds due to the State from the Centre, he said.
