No official seal to Amaravati: AP municipal minister

VIJAYAWADA: Giving a new twist to the controversy over Amaravati, municipal minister Botsa Satyanarayana on Saturday said there was no gazette notification on Amaravati as the capital city of Andhra Pradesh.
He said the previous TDP government did not even notify 29 villages in Amaravati as part of the capital city in the state gazette and thus, Project Amaravati does not have any legal sanctity.
The minister’s earlier statements on contracts, insider trading, flood threat and expenditure burden, have already triggered enough debate on the continuance of Amaravati as capital. Though the ruling YSR Congress never said that it would shift the capital from Amaravati, due to its alleged disadvantages, the opposition parties have held protests accusing the government of planning to shift the capital to elsewhere. This campaign had gained some traction among people with farmers holding protests and making representations to the leaders of opposition parties. However, it subsided with the government releasing over Rs 750 crore towards annuity to the farmers.
‘City has to be notified in government gazette’
Now, raking up the debate on the issue, Satyanarayana said the TDP regime had failed to give official capital status to Amaravati. Though AP Capital Region Development Authority Act 2014 was enacted and published in the extraordinary edition of the Gazette of Andhra Pradesh, the Act did not mention the 29 villages as part of capital city area.
“The city has to be notified in the government gazette and only then it gets legal and constitutional sanctity. Though TDP made the APCRDA Act 2014, it did not make any such gazette notification on Amaravati. Not even a notification was issued declaring Amaravati as capital of the state,” Botsa said.