Union Minister for Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj V. Kishore Chandra Deo has once again written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reiterating his demand for making Visakhapatnam the capital of the residuary State of Andhra Pradesh in view of its inherent advantages.
In a recent letter to the Prime Minister, he noted that apart from availability of infrastructure such as natural port, international airport, and 45,000 acres of available land, the national trunk route and the railway trunk routes pass through the city.
He recalled that after the formation of Andhra State, while Kurnool was the capital, there was a short period when there were two capitals and when one session of the Assembly was even held in Visakhapatnam due to lack of facilities at Kurnool.
Mr. Deo said the facilities and institutions which were announced for Andhra Pradesh could be located in various towns and cities to ensure development of the entire State.
Petrol and oil-related industries could be located in the Krishna-Godavari basin, which has adequate gas and oil reserves.
The Krishna-Godavari delta serves as the rice bowl not only for Andhra Pradesh but for entire India, and Agriculture University could be located in East Godavari district.
One session of the Assembly could be held in the Rayalaseema region as it is considered a separate region within in the State.
The Assembly sittings in Jammu and Kashmir are held in Srinagar and Jammu. Similarly, Maharashtra has one sitting in Nagpur though there are no climatic constraints as in J&K. A Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court should be located in Rayalaseema. He also suggested a separate budget for the Rayalaseema region from amongst the budgetary allocation to the Andhra Pradesh government. Mr. Deo reiterated that the need for central location has never been the criteria for selecting the location of a capital. Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, and Thiruvanantapuram are located in the extremes of their respective states.
