Vijayawada: Chandrababu Naidu to tread Amaravati ‘ruins’

Vijayawada : Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will visit the Amaravati capital region area on Thursday to study the status of the ruined capital by the ‘vindictive YSRCP government’, according to TDP leaders.

During his tour of the region, Naidu will visit the seed access road, the villages under the capital city region, the project office of the CRDA. He will hold a meeting with the officials and will try to make a preliminary assessment of the cost that was involved in completing the works of the buildings, including the housing complexes which were ready to the extent of 80 percent.

These housing complexes were meant for Ministers, High Court judges and bureaucrats. If completed, it could have saved the exchequer a lot of money which the government was paying nowin the form of rents. Naidu will also visit the seed access roads, which are the roads only for namesake.

Amaravati, which was envisaged as a dream capital of the residual Andhra Pradesh by the TDP government in 2014 soon after bifurcation, is now in a state of ruins and the period of tenders for the works is also over. Fresh tenders will have to be called now. According to MAUD Minister P Narayana, it will take at least four months to put the construction activity back on track. Narayana said the Cabinet would decide when the works should begin.

Meanwhile, a drive across the capital city by Hans India shows that there is nothing that one can talk about the capital city. What is left of the capital city region is only a skeleton. The TDP 1.0 government had given permission to setup a few private universities like SRM, VIT, Mata Amritanandamayi. They have constructed huge campuses and the universities with best of facilities have started working. But then they are not able to attract students from far and wide due to lack of even approach roads.

Parents from other states who visit these universities are refusing to admit their children as there is no nearby commercial activity. There are no hotels or any such basic facilities nearby.

Reaching these universities is like a roller coaster ride. The roads if one can call them so are so narrow and two vehicles cannot cross each other. Added to this, there is wild growth of dried grass on both sides of the roads. One has to pass through narrow and damaged roads of villages. Seeing all this, parents of students from outside Andhra Pradesh are refusing to admit their children.

The daunting task before the new government now is how to revive the capital city and from where they should begin the works?