Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has emerged as the messiah and visionary for the five crore Seemandhra people after the state bifurcation which they opposed tooth and nail.
Naidu shoulders a Herculean task of not only rebuilding a new state along with a new capital from the scratch, but also providing jobs to youth, all welfare benefits to farmers, women, dalits and BCs besides minorities, as envisaged in the TDP manifesto. It is perhaps only the TDP which had designed separate manifestos for both Telagnana and Andhra Pradesh though major features of loan waiver, jobs, BC promotion and development ethos were same for both. Chandrababu has very dexterously handled the issues of loan waiver and state capital by setting up a committee and also holding his swearing in at a road side stage between Vijayawada and Guntur .The TDLP meeting was held at Tirupati and the first cabinet meet was held in Visakhapatnam .All this indicated that Naidu had decided to ignore KCR and set forth his own agenda for development of Seemandhra . But it was Naidu who too lead in the relief activities for the Vignan Jyoti college students stuck at Himachal Pradesh. Besides this he announced a package of compensation and also shook up NDA govt to act.
According to sources, Naidu has delegated the job of preparing the blueprint of the new capital to different committees and individual experts. He plans a new capital which would be a mix of both Chandigarh and Ahmedabad which could be replicated even in Delhi at a later stage to split up the NCR (national capital region) and the Delhi state. He is also asking experts about the required facilities and buildings, land and money etc, to construct the capital. Sources said that while he has not yet revealed the location of the new capital city, he has told that it will come up between Vijayawada and Guntur. The Centre will have to bear the entire expenses for the construction of the new capital estimated approximately at about Rs. 2,00,000 crore. The expert committee,( Shivaramakrishnan committee) constituted by the Centre, is also working in coordination with Naidu’s experts.
“AP government engineers will prepare a comprehensive report on Naidu’s directions and expert opinions on the new capital after the Sivarama Krishnan Committee submits its report” says State finance minister Yanamala Rama Krishnudu. After the Hyderabad experience, the Telugu Desam government wants to decentralize developmental activities and plans to set up some important institutions all around seemandhra cities and not under one cluster as in Hyderabad.
The TDP govt is gearing up for the assembly session where it will highlight and unravel its blue print for development of Seemandhra which included bullet trains, Industrial policy for manufacturing, IT and Pharma sectors. He will lace it with welfare sops like pensions, loan waivers, tuition fee reimbursements, sops for women, minorities, dalits and BCs. “I will not make the mistake of 2004 again; I will infuse a balanced growth of development and populist welfare programs” says Chandrababu Naidu candidly. The focus of his programs for Seemandhra besides new capital and loan waiver are – removal of all belt liquor shops (illegal liquor outlets), Free rural and urban bottled drinking water scheme ( NTR sujala sravanti), homes for every one, free healthcare etc.
Right now Chadrababu Naidu is assessing the huge financial burden on Seemandhra government which has opened account with Rs.15, 000 crore fiscal deficit and also devoid of its ‘golden goose’ (revenue earner – Hyderabad). His only hope is that he has the NDA government of Narendra Modi with well wisher M Venkaiah Naidu behind him.
To appease BJP he gave them two cabinet berths in TDP government and also accepted one medium sized portfolio of civil aviation for TDP MP Ashok Gajapathi Raju. There is not a single minority minister in Naidu govt now. Naidu is also ready to offer one Rajya Sabha seat to BJP, in order to accommodate Nirmala Seetharaman now a minister in Modi government.
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