Centre urged to build Ramayapatnam port

Ongole: It is okay to have a port at the Vadarevu near Chirala, but that should be constructed only after the completion of Ramayapatnam port, demanded the members of public fronts, student wings and representatives of public.

A round table meeting is held in Ongole on Monday to discuss on the comments of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu over the construction of major port in the Prakasam district.

The people from Prakasam district have been demanding the construction of a port and shipbuilding yard at Ramayapatnam for a long time. As part of the proposed Sagar Mala project, the UPA government wanted to construct two major ports, one at Sagar Island in West Bengal and another in Andhra Pradesh.

It proposed the port in Andhra Pradesh at Nakkapalli in Visakhapatnam or Dugarajapatnam in Nellore or Ramayapatnam in Prakasam district. The Nakkapalli and Dugarajapatnam ports are economically and technically declared as nonviable projects by government and non-government agencies primarily and the then Congress Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy announced that he will lay foundation stone to Ramayapatnam port.

But in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Bill, the Union government proposed to construct Dugarajapatnam port and the NDA government conducted studies through agencies like RITES, Ernst and Young and NITI Ayog.

After taking considerations of objections from ISRO, environmentalists and the natural limitations, all agencies announced that the Dugarajapatnam port is nonviable economically and environmentally and a security threat to ISRO.

This helped the public fronts in the Prakasam district demand for the Ramayapatnam port more louder. But last week, in his AP tour, the union minister for road transport & highways, shipping & water resources, Nitin Gadkari announced that the Central government is ready to construct the port, if the state is ready to allocate 3,000 acre land at Vadarevu near Chirala.

But the lands in and around Vadarevu are in the attachment of enforcement directorate in the VANPIC case. In his reply, the chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu demanded that the union government should construct the Dugarajapatnam port as promised in the reorganisation bill.

Shocked by the sudden development of politics over the Ramayapatnam port, the Prakasam Jilla Abhivruddhi Vedika and other organizations conducted a round table meeting in Ongole.

Chunchu Seshaiah from Virginia Tobacco Growers Association opined that the state and Central governments are not in favour of Ramayapatnam port, due to their close ties with the management of Krishnapatnam port. He called for agitation as the Ramayapatnam port is the right of Prakasam district people.