Rayalaseema should get AP Capital - TeluguPeople.com News

TIRUPATI: Two days after the people of Kurnool pressed the Sivaramakrishnan Committee -- appointed by the Centre to study various alternatives for the location of the capital of the Residuary AP state - to choose Kurnool as the capital, it was the turn of the people of Tirupati to demand of the committee that it should plump for Tirupati or any other place in Rayalaseema for the purpose.

People from different walks of life, including political leaders and intellectuals, met the committee members here and justified their demands citing the backwardness of the region.

They warned that if their demand was not conceded they would soon launch a movement for a separate Rayalaseema state on the lines of the movement for a separate Telangana state. They also warned of water wars between the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.

Centre for Rayalaseema Studies (CRS) president Bhuman demanded the location of the capital city of the new state either in Tirupati or any other place in Rayalaseema. Strangely, he also batted for Donakonda area of Prakasam district for the location of the new capital.

'We want the capital city only to have an Assembly, a Secretariat, quarters for ministers, MLAs and MLCs and the rest of the institutions should be dispersed in other districts of the state,'' he said.

'We are against having a Hyderabad-like capital city, where all the important institutions and offices are located and development is concentrated to the exclusion of other areas. Keeping this in view, we demand decentralisation of development of the new state,' SVU History department professor Krishna Mohan Reddy said.

SVU Economics department professor A Ranga Reddy and others also underlined the need for decentralisation of development.

Rubbishing the argument that the capital city should be centrally located in the state, those who interacted with the Committee members, said, 'When the national capital of Delhi is not centrally in the country and when the capital cities of several states including Mumbai(Maharashtra), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Bangalore (Karnataka), Kolkata (West Bengal) and Gandhi Nagar (Gujarat) are located in corners of their respective states, there is no validity for such an argument vis-a-vis the Residuary AP state.''

Citing the availability of vast areas of non-agricultural land in Rayalaseema, they suggested to the committee members to recommend to the government the location of the capital here or at some other place in Rayalaseema.