All these days, the Telugu Desam Party government had been dodging on the construction of Amaravati capital on the pretext that the designs had not been finalised and the Centre had not released funds.
With expected loans from the World Bank are also not forthcoming, the Chandrababu Naidu government has finally decided to go in for market borrowings and crowd funding to take up works at least partially to show some progress to the people before the next elections.
Even then, the works are unlikely to be completed before the elections. Now, the latest excuse being shown by the Naidu government for the delay in the progress of works is that the contractors are not able to get adequate manual labour to speed up the works.
According reports in a section of media, the contractors are facing acute shortage of construction labourers to work on Amaravati capital works.
While there was not much response from the local labourers due to poor daily wages, those who were brought from neighbouring states like Maharasthra, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, besides from far-off places like Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal, are not sufficient to speed up works.
At present, the AP Capital Region Development Authority RDA has taken up various construction projects such as multi-storied apartments for MLAs, AIS officers, NGOs, Gazetted officers and other employees.
The projects are expected to be completed by this year end, but due to severe shortage of manpower, the progress has been slow.
There is a high demand for carpenters, bar benders, mason, masonry helpers and non-skilled, semi-skilled and other workers across the state and so, not many people are interested in working for the capital construction works.
In many projects, not even half the number of total required strength of work force is available, say the officials.
Adding to their woes, several workers of West Bengal returned home during the recent panchayat elections in their home State and have not returned yet.
Some of the workers came from Jharkhand and Bihar also returned to their native places.
