Botsa says no to Amaravati once again

Once again, Minister for Education and the senior member of the AP cabinet, Botsa Satyanarayana, vented his anger at the demand for development of Amaravati as the only capital. Speaking to media persons in Amaravati on Saturday, the minister alleged that some selfish political and business people were raising the demand for Amaravati development.

These politicians and the business people have their own interests in Amaravati as they have invested in the lands, he said. He further said that 90 per cent of the farmers have sold their lands in all 29 villages. He said that the lands given to the government in pooling belonged to the investors and not the farmers.

“The farmers have sold their lands, bought jewelry and luxurious vehicles, built posh houses and went on foreign tours. Those who are making noise in the name of Amaravati are the investors,” the Minister said.

The Minister said that Amaravti would require a few lakh crores of rupees to be developed. “Do you want us to bring a few lakh crores of rupees and dump it in Amaravati,” he asked. He recalled the statement of former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu who said that Rs 5 lakh crore is required to develop Amaravati as a city.

The Minister also said that it would take several years for a village to develop into a town and a town to develop into a city. “If we go against this natural course, we need to dump money to develop villages into a mega city,” he said.

Botsa Satyanarayana said that the government was developing Amaravati at a slow pace. The area is now to be made livable and hence the government was giving house sites to the poor, the minister said. “Let people start living there,” he said and regretted that some forces were not allowing the government to give the lands for house sites to the people.

Referring to the recent MLC elections, the minister said that the party is yet to review the defeat. “We are on the job. We need to have a deeper look into the issue. We would soon analyze where we went wrong to lose the election,” the minister said.