The members of Taxpayers’ Association demanded that the State government withdraw the decision of setting up the ‘Vijayawada, Guntur Infra Development Corporation’.
Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, they alleged that the new corporation was to privatise all the services related to basic amenities in the two cities.
“The new Corporation will be under the Andhra Pradesh Urban Infrastructure Assets Management Ltd (APUIAML) which was formed earlier this year and is responsible for providing drinking water, urban transport, river front development, garbage management and others.
“As the company has the provision to involve private players in development works there is a danger of increasing burden on common public in the form of various taxes,” said association secretary M.V. Anjaneyulu.
This will give rise to commercialisation of basic amenities in the two cities, he added.
Association president V. Sambi Reddy said that according to the State Cabinet decision the corporation will also cover all the adjacent villages of Vijayawada and Guntur which will enable the government to bring costly lands in village panchayats out of the ambit of the Land Ceiling Act and hand them over to private players.
The move is only beneficial to private companies and the government to amass land, he said.
