Strong lobbying for Vijayawada as capital city

Vijayawada: The real estate activity is throbbing around Vijayawada. With the division of the State being certain, rumours are doing the rounds that the Seemandhra capital would be anywhere in the range of 70-120 km from Vijayawada.

Real estate companies are vying with one another to lay their hands on the lands around Vijayawada. However, they expect retail activity to pick up only after the fate of the no-confidence motion against the UPA government is known.

Meanwhile, the statement of Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh that the government would de-notify the forest land to locate the new capital for the residuary State of Andhra Pradesh had drawn public focus to Bapulapadu, Musunuru and Nuzvid mandals of Krishna district, located between Vijayawada and Eluru.

The area has more than 15,000 acres of forest land, part of which is under encroachment. Besides this, there is over 3,400 acres of endowment land belonging to the Raghunadhaswamy Temple at Gollapalli in Nuzvid mandal, which is also under illegal occupation of some individuals from Vijayawada city. The area is reportedly mooted as the location for the new capital by Union Minister for Tourism K Chiranjeevi.

APCC chief Botcha Satyanarayana is said to be backing the proposal. It is said that Chiranjeevi had prevailed upon Jairam Ramesh to convince the GoM on the new capital location, following which the Minister announced the
government's preparedness to de-notify the forest land for the new capital.

According to information available, there are more than 6,000 acres of forest land at Katranipadu in Musunuru mandal and another 7,000 acres of forest land at Mallavalli and Veeravalli in Bapulapadu mandal.

In addition to this, the 3,400 acres of the endowments land was also considered as suitable and ideal for the location of the new capital, the sources said.

It is said that a team of senior officers from the State and the Central governments toured the Seemandhra region for identification of suitable place for the new capital a few months ago.

They reportedly described the forest land, besides the campus of Acharya Nagarjuna University, for locating the new capital.

The team also reportedly identified a handful of private engineering colleges in Krishna and Guntur districts for housing various government departments if the new capital is established in the region.