Narayana took charge today as the Andhra Pradesh minister for municipal administration and urban development.
Pongur Narayana, who took charge today as the Andhra Pradesh minister for municipal administration and urban development, said that the development works of the State capital Amaravathi would be completed in the next two-and-a-half years.
Narayana took charge at the State secretariat in Velagapudi. Speaking on the occasion, he said that the best design had been implemented with the aim of making Amaravathi one of the top five capitals in the world. He said that every construction program undertaken in the capital had been designed and implemented with the help of the Government of Singapore, and that the same masterplan designed in the past for the development of the capital would be implemented now.
"During our first term, tenders worth Rs 48,000 crore had been floated for the construction of buildings for ministers, secretaries, officials and employees in the first phase, besides creating infrastructure covering a majority of the area in the capital. Payments of Rs 9,000 crore had also been made. And the construction of the buildings for the residences of ministers, secretaries, officers and employees had also been completed by almost 90%," he said, and lamented that all that had been abandoned in the last five years.
"It is tragic. As part of the land acquisition required for the construction of the capital city, the notification for land pooling was issued on January 1, 2015, and by the midnight of February 28, 2015, 34,000 acres were handed over to the government by the farmers without any litigation. The previous government put all that effort and sacrifice to waste for political reasons, and completely neglected the development of such a capital," he alleged.
State Municipal Administration & Urban Development Department Special CS Y Srilakshmi, CDMA Chitturi Sridhar, CRDA Commissioner Vivek Yadav, Additional Commissioner Katta Simhachalam, Vijayawada Municipal Commissioner Swapnil Dinakar, CRDA Chief Engineers N V R K Prasad, Ch Dhananjay and others, and several other officials congratulated the minister by presenting bouquets of flowers to him on the occasion.