Capital: Cabinet too favours Vijayawada-Guntur stretch

CM likely to make formal announcement in Assembly today. The capital issue dominated the five-and-a-half hour-long meeting and sources said Mr. Naidu was not only firm on Vijayawada-Guntur as capital, as he had been consistently asserting during the last three months, but also asked his Cabinet colleagues not to worry about the Sivaramakrishnan Committee’s recommendations.

The State Cabinet which met here on Monday reportedly decided in favour of Vijayawada-Guntur stretch as capital of Andhra Pradesh, apparently brushing aside Sivaramakrishnan Committee’s report that had lot of reservations about this location.

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is likely to make a formal statement about the Cabinet’s decision in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday. He is expected to list out the reasons in defence of his government’s choice. In fact Mr. Naidu is stated to have cautioned his Cabinet colleagues against divulging any information to media about deliberations at today’s meeting, citing rules that prohibited Ministers from making any statement outside the Assembly when it is in session.

The capital issue dominated the five-and-a-half hour-long meeting and sources said Mr. Naidu was not only firm on Vijayawada-Guntur as capital, as he had been consistently asserting during the last three months, but also asked his Cabinet colleagues not to worry about the Sivaramakrishnan Committee’s recommendations. The government was well within its means in taking such decisions.

The Cabinet is believed to have approved constitution of a sub-committee for land acquisition for the capital and it may include Ministers -- Y. Ramakrishudu, P.Narayana, Devineni Umamaheswara Rao, Prathipati Pulla Rao and Atchan Naidu. Depending on the response from farmers to land acquisition, the capital city could start from either Nuzvid side or Mangalagiri.

A major decision reportedly taken was to clear the NTPC proposal to set up 4,000 MW thermal power project at Visakhapatnam and allot 1,200 acres for it. The Cabinet is stated to have increased the qualifying age for candidates appearing for DSC exam to 40, notification for which is likely to be issued on September 5, reconstitute temple managing committees and market committees.

Loan waiver in phases

The Cabinet is stated to have decided to implement crop debt waiver scheme for farmers in phases. Apart from rescheduling of crop loans in 120 mandals, measures will be taken to speed up implementation of loan waiver in other mandals by finalising the list of genuine crop loan borrowers at the earliest.

The 24-hour power supply will be launched from October 2 and entire State will be covered in three months.