Anantapur: RRS opposes administrative capital in steel city

Anantapur: Rayalaseema Rashtra Samithi (RRS) president Kuncham Venkata Subba Reddy came down heavily on the Chief Minister YS Jagan mohan Reddy for retracting his steps on retaining Amaravati as the state capital and trying to establish three capitals Legislative, Judicial and Administrative capitals.

In a statement released to the media on Saturday, Subba Reddy said the establishment of the administrative capital at Visakhapatnam would do a great injustice to the Rayalaseema region. How can Anantapur district which is on the Karnataka border and those in Madakasira region have access to Visakhapatnam?, he asked.

"Nobody is thinking of Rayalaseema or the region's interests. Neither the Central government nor the judiciary is supporting the government's line of thinking,"

Subba Reddy alleged that the region was subjected to gross injustice on the irrigation front and overall development. The region was also industrially backward with hardly any industries, which generate employment, he pointed out. The much-promised Kadapa steel plant was like a mirage in the desert, he said and added while Anantapur district has iron ore mines, no effort had been made during the past 6 decades to set up steèl plant. Cement factories could have been established on a large scale but efforts were not made in that direction. As Rayalaseema has ideal climate for solar and wind energy, the region could be a non-conventional energy hub.

The RRS president said Anantapur could be developed into a Horticulture Hub for exporting 25 varieties of fruits to abroad. Groundnut acreage being the largest in the world could have been commercially tapped for exporting peanuts to Western and European countries. A region with such potential for development was treated as God-Forsaken land, Subba Reddy fumed.

"This year we will mobolise all sections of people to create a mass movement and demand the Centre to carve out a separate state or let it be declared as a Union Territory," Reddy demanded.