TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu flays BCG report on AP capital

Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday slammed Boston Consulting Group for junking Amaravati as Andhra Pradesh capital, his pet project, and described as "waste paper" its report pitching for Visakhapatnam as the seat of power. Naidu, who during the previous TDP rule proclaimed he was building a greenfield city of Amaravati as the capital of divided Andhra Pradesh, also said it was a greenfield-cum- brownfield city.

Blasting the report submitted by the international consultancy firm Boston Consulting Group on Andhra Pradesh capital, the TDP leader told a press conference here it was nothing but a waste paper. The so-called report of BCG is a bundle of lies. If not a waste paper, whats it? he asked, alleging the consultancy firm had no credibility.

Naidu wondered if there was any state in the country where the executive and the legislature were located at different places, referring to one of the recommendations made by BCG that APs Secretariat could be located in Visakhapatnam and the legislature in Amaravati. He angrily asked if the government wanted to kill Amaravati that was planned to be the economic hub, creating lakhs of jobs and generating wealth for the state.

On Amaravati, he said it "is not a greenfield city its a greenfield-cum-brownfield city. On one side there is Vijayawada, on the other, there are Tadepalli, Mangalagiri, Tenali, and Guntur. We wanted to develop it that way. What he envisaged was a capital that would give an imaginative career for the children.

The capital should be a place that will give the children an imaginative career, an imaginative further future they want, the former Chief Minister said. The BCG, hired to suggest a BIG (balance, inclusive growth) strategy for Andhra Pradesh, made the recommendations that reflected Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy's pitch for three different capitals.

In his speech in the state assembly on December 17, he had suggested that the Secretariat be located in Visakhapatnam, the Legislature in Amaravati and the High Court in Kurnool.