Andhra CM Jaganmohan Reddy seeks Centre’s support for 3 capitals

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy has sought the Centre’s support for his decentralised capital structure plan and has requested for a notification towards making Kurnool as the judicial capital of the state.

Late on Tuesday, Reddy met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi, presenting the issue besides matters like the pending approval for the revised cost estimate of Rs 55,656 crore for Polavaram, a national project. The CM had met Shah last month too making the requests.

However, the meeting now happened on the eve of January 20, which marks the completion of one year since the YSRCP government had first introduced two bills in the Assembly — one stripping the Amaravati region of its capital status and other constituting three capitals for the state — executive at Visakhapatnam, legislative at Amaravati and judiciary at Kurnool.

The controversial bills, opposed by the TDP and other Opposition parties, were approved twice by the Assembly where the YSRCP has massive majority and received Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan’s assent on July 31.

However, Reddy could not shift the executive seat to Vizag because of the cases in the Andhra Pradesh High Court challenging the three capital plan. The court had barred the government from moving forward on the capital translocation. “Our government is committed to the decentralisation of administration to achieve an equitable development of all the regions. The related laws were made in August. I am requesting for a re-notification to set up the state high court at Kurnool,” Reddy told Shah on Tuesday, according to the CMO officials.

In his Tuesday meeting of about 90 minutes with Shah, Reddy pointed that the land needed to acquire for Polavaram project increased to 1.55 lakh from 1.02 lakh acres and the number of families to be rehabilitated from 44,574 to 1,06,006 families.

The CM requested the central government to consider the 2017-18 price index and approve the revised cost committee’s estimate of Rs 55,656.87 for the multipurpose project, under construction on River Godavari near Rajahmundry.