Lakshman Reddy, a former judge of AP High Court and Honorary President of Rayalaseema Development Forum feels that locating the new capital of Andhra Pradesh in Vijayawada would be a disaster and has called for the new capital to be at an appropriate place in Rayalaseema.
Lakshman Reddy gives the following reasons in support of his contention:
Lakhs of acres of barren land mostly belonging to the government was available in Rayalaseema. Locating the capital in Eluru-Vijayawada-Guntur belt would be an ecological disaster as prices have already skyrocketed in that region and there would be large scale migration of people from agriculture to real-estate badly impacting food production.
Capital in congested area would mean a lot of litigation problems which in turn would hamper the development of the new capital.
Earmarking 5000 acres of green land for an international airport in Vijayawada, Eluru or Gannavaram would be a folly. The same land in Rayalaseema would be much cheaper and easier to acquire.
For those who say that Rayalaseema is not well connected, in these days of Internet and smart phones, that is not a valid point. In the available period of ten years, a state-of-the art planned city can easily be developed in Rayalaseema.
Having the capital in Rayalaseema would create large-scale employment opportunities and this would enable people to move away from the vicious faction culture plaguing the region.
