Visakhapatnam: Confusion prevails among the public as both the ruling party and Opposition vie with one another to claim credit over prestigious projects like Bhogapuram Greenfield International Airport and the Google Data Centre, among other initiatives.

The NDA government makes it clear that these projects were grounded in their rule and the Bhogapuram Airport is nearing completion in a couple of months. The data centre too, they ascertained, gained momentum under the leadership of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and IT Minister Nara Lokesh.

However, the YSRCP campaigned that they initiated the Bhogapuram Airport and the data centre during their tenure and even laid foundation stones for them. This has created considerable confusion among the public as they are unable to come to terms with the facts behind these claims.

Soon after the NDA government announced establishment of Google Data Centre, YSRCP former IT Minister Gudivada Amarnath raised an objection to it underlining that it would impact the resources due to high consumption of water and power. “Also, the proposed data centre would generate large amounts of heat and become a challenging task for the people of Visakhapatnam to put up with such magnitude of heat,” Amarnath stressed.

Even when the YSRCP leaders were campaigning against the establishment of Google Data Centre, former Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy noticed that the campaign did not go down well among the public and claimed credit for the data centre instead, as he sensed that the campaign was creating a negative impact on the party.

A similar argument continued even for the Bhogapuram Greenfield International Airport as well. YSRCP MLC Botcha Satyanarayana reiterated that all the groundwork for the project, including land acquisition and tender approvals, was done during YSRCP’s tenure.

Responding to such claims, Bheemunipatnam MLA Ganta Srinivasa Rao stated that Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu announced the Bhogapuram Airport during his visit to Vizianagaram and the announcement dates back to February 12, 2015. The MLA recalled that the land acquisition for the project took wings on April 9 of the same year. Further, the airport authority’s approval, the RPO (Rehabilitation and Resettlement Plan) and the feasibility report for the project took shape in 2015 itself.

Although the airport was initially planned to be built on 5,000 acres of site, it was later confined to approximately 2,500 acres. The MLA further stated that the airport works were inordinately delayed due to cases filed by Bhogapuram YSRCP mandal party president Uppada Suryanarayana Reddy, Sarpanch Uppada Siva Reddy, Kakarlapudi Srinivas Raju, Datla Sridevi and several others.

With both the coalition and YSRCP presenting evidence of the projects’ progress made during their respective tenures, people are caught unaware about the actual fact.