Krishna Rao opposes spending `1L cr on capital construction

-    Says spending such a huge amount will lead to causing burden on people of the State
-    The former Chief Secretary opines that Amaravati should be developed as an administrative capital instead of a mega commercial capital
-    Pawan Kalyan to release Krishna Rao’s book ‘Whose capital Amaravati’ on April 5

Vijayawada: Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan will release the book ‘Whose capital Amaravati’ penned by former Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh I Y R Krishna Rao on April 5. 

The former IAS officer has written the book explaining the history of the capitals of Andhra Pradesh, land pooling, pros and cons with the construction of capital in Amaravati, construction of capitals by states like Chandigarh, Jharkhand and other countries like Australia, Malaysia, Nigeria and Brazil etc. 

Addressing the media conference at a hotel here on Sunday, Krishna Rao said he had invited former MP Vundavalli Arun Kumar, CPM State secretary P Madhu, CPI State Secretary K Ramakrishna and former minister and BJP leader P Manikyala Rao for the book release function which will be held at MBVK Bhavan in Vijayawada. He said he had dedicated the book to former minister Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao. Krishna Rao told the reporters that construction of mega capital with Rs 1 lakh crore would become huge burden on the people of Andhra Pradesh in future. He said Nigeria and Malaysia constructed capital cities with revenue earned on the oil but the case of Andhra Pradesh is different. He felt that Amaravati could be developed as administrative capital rather than commercial mega capital.

He said no mega city was developed overnight in the world. He recalled that the present US capital Washington DC was declared as capital of the US 100 years ago and it was developed during the last 100 years. 

He said Brazil had started the capital Brasília city construction works in the 1960s and continued till 1980 and their entire economy had collapsed because money was spent on the new capital. He said later the military took over the country due to failure of the leadership.

Referring to the details of the book Whose capital Amaravati?, he said it has been written in both Telugu and English languages and contains information about suggestions of Sivarama Krishna Committee and policies of TDP government on construction of the capital. 

Replying to a question, he made it clear that he never spoke about changing the location of capital from Amaravati to another place. He pointed out that the capital area has already been decided and he would not prefer changing its location.