Stepping up his attack on the NDA government at the Centre led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Telugu Desam Party president Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday sought to know why the people of the state should pay taxes to the centre, which is not forthcoming to release funds for the construction of new capital Amaravati.
Addressing the TDP workers on the second day of party conclave Mahanadu at Vijayawada, Naidu alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not want a world class capital to come up in Amaravati.
“It has not been releasing funds deliberately to the state to take up works on capital. If the Centre does not release funds due to us, why should we pay taxes to the Centre, after all,” Naidu said.
Naidu reminded that Modi was constructing a huge smart city at Dholera in Gujarat at a cost of Rs 95,000 crore with modern airport, roads and metro rail.
“Why don’t we have a similar capital city? But Modi does not want it. That is why he is not releasing funds,” he said.
He further said that Amaravati would fetch a lot of revenue for the Centre in the form of income tax, corporate tax and GST once it was developed into a modern city.
He refuted the criticism of the Opposition parties that his government was spending all the money on Amaravati at the cost of other developmental works.
“We have not spent a single rupee on acquiring 34,000 acres of land from farmers for the capital city. In lieu of their lands, we have given them plots.
We are monetising the land to generate funds for the creation of infrastructural facilities such as roads, drainage, electricity, drinking water and residential buildings.
In the coming years, Amaravati will become a self-sustaining venture, and we will have thousands of crores of rupees to spend on other parts of the state,” he said.
