Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu asked the CRDA officials to discard the proposal to construct the temporary secretariat at Mangalagiri . Naidu asked the officials to relocate secretariat from Mangalagiri to the villages nearer to the ground zero, where the foundation stone was laid for the construction of the capital.

This is for the second time that Naidu changed his mind on Mangalagiri and nth time on the location of temporary capital. Last time, in January 2015, tenders were called for the construction of the secretariat and a committee was step, and developer was also named. Suddenly the decision was dropped. Later, many buildings in Vijayawada and Guntur were examined to locate various offices. A lot of money was spent on the search committee visits to these towns. The idea was dropped again. Now, ten days ago, Naidu said 6 lakh sqf space would be built to locate the seat of power near Mangalagiri and a GO had been issued. Naidu gave a lecture on the need to and purpose of having a temporary secretariat at Mangalagiri. A lot of hype was created by the media, especially the electronic media, which ran the story round the clock as if it was a great breakthrough. On December 29, a GO had been issued to spend about Rs 180 cr on the construction of make-shift secretariat at Mangalagiri. Now Mangalagiri is officially discarded. As per the latest decision, the temporary capital (Scretarait and Assembly) will come up at a location nearer to ground zero and closer to the 29 villages in capital region. (According to sources either Rayapudi or Mandadam will house the temporary capital.)

This was revealed by none other than urban development minister and the man incharge of Amaravati affairs P Narayana. The reason for relocating the makeshift capital sounds frivolous.

According to Narayana the decision was taken keeping in view the needs of the farmers of these villages, who had given lands to the capital construction. (Secretariat is not a village panchayat. When CRDA is located in Vijayawada, there is no need for farmers to visit the secretariat day to day basis- telugu360.com view .)” Since the master plan of the capital is ready and awaiting suggestions from the farmers in the area, CM Chandrababu Naidu wanted the temporary capital to be built at a location central to the 29 villages, which are now part of the capital city,” he said. He further said, ” It was earlier thought to have temporary capital at Amaravati township in an extent of 80ac. But plans had to be changed. As the experts have engaged in soil testing for the past couple of day, it is time to locate a final location,” he said.

Since the temporary capital has to be kept ready by June (six months) as instructed by chief minister Naidu, the government was going in for G+1 instead of high-rise buildings, with the plinth area of 6 lakh sqf, he added.

There is no guarantee that the proposed temporary capital would be sufficient to accommodate entire administrative set up of AP. It is also not clear whether government would be shifted in one go or in a phased manner. So, the Medha Towers near Gannavaram will also be used to locate some departments. Confusion worse confounded.