Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Buggana Rajendernath said the TDP leader and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu was more interested in developing real estate than building a capital city.

Reacting to Naidu’s tour of capital city of Amaravati and his observations on its development, the Finance Minister said he has no moral right to question as he ‘failed to move even one brick during his five-year term.’

Speaking to media on Thursday, he said the concept of self-financing is a mirage as it is staggered over a period of years up to 2030 and what the TDP government under Naidu had spent was a meagre ₹277 crore when compared to the ₹1.9-lakh-crore plan. The loans taken from commercial banks and bonds floated notwithstanding there was no clarity on how much NITI Aayog would give to develop a capital city.

Knowing well that he has started an impossible task, Naidu had deliberately delayed the state capital development and was only making tall claims the Minister charged.

The self-financing concept is nothing but real estate business which is not the duty of any state government. Land was taken away from farmers using coercion.

The few buildings that came up are of poor quality and exorbitant rates were paid, and huge amounts were spent and the corruption charges will be filed soon.

The World Bank has backed out only after studying the irregularities and rigging during the tender process and after two inspections to the capital area region and talking to the stakeholders, he alleged.

“The ambitious project of the capital city of 8,000 sq km is not a realistic one as major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai are much smaller in size and we do not need that much of an extent for a capital city. The major cities have developed with decentralisation with other regions getting their fair share while the plan was different in the graphics of Naidu,” he said.

Why Chandrababu has ignored Visakhapatnam for IT sector during his term and why he did not take into consideration Anantapur and its proximity to Bengaluru for that matter.

Any city should develop on its own but there is no need to build a big city taking huge loans, he said adding that development takes place only through decentralisation and not through concentration. The corruption charges in the State capital against TDP will be proved at an opportune time, he claimed.

The sincerity of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy cannot be questioned as he has built a house in the region while Chandrababu Naidu has no house of his own and is staying in an illegal structure, he argued.

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