Will build Amaravati in 30 months: Narayana

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to complete the development works of Amaravati capital city in about 30 months.

This was announced here on Sunday by Municipal Administration Minister P Narayana soon after taking charge as minister in the state Secretariat. He said the state capital will be developed as one of the top five capital cities in the world and that the plans devised in the past will be implemented to meet this target. According to the minister, all the development works initiated in the capital had involved the Singapore government, especially in designing the city in such a way that all districts will benefit financially.

He said they had visited Singapore, China, Japan, Russia, Malaysia and other countries to craft the best designs for Amaravati.

Narayana said tenders worth Rs 48,000 crore were called in the past to ensure that all amenities were made available in the majority of the area in the capital, and that bills of Rs 9,000 crore were paid. He said these works included the construction of the residential quarters of bureaucrats, legislators and others, which were completed up to 90 per cent.

He said after the land pooling notification was issued on January 1, 2015 farmers handed over 34,000 acres of land to the government by February 28, 2015. However, the capital city development project was neglected by the previous YSRCP government.

The minister said he will review the plans with the officials and in the next 15 days some clarity would emerge on how to prioritise the capital city works. He said the capital development masterplan devised in the past would be implemented, especially in three phases.

The first phase of city building development works would cost Rs 48,000 crore, he said, adding that the second phase would focus on constructing metro rail infrastructure.

Anna Canteens

Further, Narayana said, ‘Anna Canteens', which provide cooked meals at subsidised prices will be revived in three weeks. ‘Anna Canteens' offer breakfast, lunch and dinner at Rs 5 each, totalling Rs 15 per day.

Back then, the state government had entrusted the responsibility to ISKCON to provide the three meals a day at Rs 73, bearing the subsidy cost of Rs 58 after people bought them at Rs 15 per day. Narayana said that up to 2.25 lakh people used to relish ‘Anna Canteen' food on a daily basis while more than 4.6 crore meals were served during the earlier TDP government.