Congress senior leader and Rajya Sabha member KVP Ramachandra Rao sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to stop “the brazen splurging of public money” in the construction of ‘temporary government complex ‘ at Velagapudi in capital Amaravati region.
Rao also questioned the legitimacy of the MoUs the Andhra Pradesh government signing with too many foreign companies in a non-transparent manner. He urged the PM to clear the clouds of doubts among the people of the state about operations of these foreign companies.
Dashing off a letter to the PM on Sunday, KVP said the capital project had not only violated the AP Reorganization Act, 2014 but also a waste on the tax payers’ money. If the chief minister was really serious, he said, Naidu could very well have started construction of the original capital, which the Prime Minister himself had laid foundation last year. Drawing the PM’s attention to the ongoing works on the temporary government complex construction, the Rajya Sabha MP said it was an unnecessary project.
“The unscientific and hurried approach of the State government to capital construction is raising serious doubts about the motives behind the decision to construct ad hoc capital,” Ramachandra Rao said.
Reminding the Prime Minister the letters he had earlier written on various issues pertaining to the proposed Greenfield capital city, he urged the PM to look into the suitability of the location which he said was in the flood prone area. He also brought doubts raised by many experts and NGOs with regard to the environmental concerns of capital project to PM’s notice.
He said he had written a letter to the Minister for Environment, Forest as well on how environment clearance (EC)accorded by State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority for 217 sq km city without going into the consequences of the project and how hastily the EC was accorded
“As per my information and EIA-2006 guidelines, this development activity comes under Category-A projects. But, it is surprising to note that the Andhra Pradesh SEIAA, without going into details and not conducting any scrutiny by central Environment Appraisal Committee (MoEF), has granted Environment clearance which is illegal,” KVP said.
