Bharatiya Janata Party Rajya Sabha member G.V.L.Narasimha Rao on Friday urged Chief Minister N.Chandrababu Naidu to give his consent for locating the Central port at Ramayapatnam instead of Dugarajapatnam.
Even a year after the Centre had expressed its inability to set up the sanctioned public sector port in SRSP Nellore district after experts found Dugarajapatnam site ‘technically infeasible and economically unviable’, the TDP government had not named an alternative site for the project to the Centre for ‘reasons best known to it’, he said.
“I will expedite all clearances for a Central port at Ramayapatnam and ensure early grounding if the Chief Minister responds quickly on the issue,” he added.
‘No big projects’
It was unfortunate that the State government ignored Prakasam district in the location of any of the big ticket projects or institutions of higher education, the MP felt.
“Why this step-motherly treatment towards a district formed by bringing together most backward parts of Guntur, Nellore and Kurnool districts?” he wondered.
The ‘inept’ Chandrababu Naidu government was unable to utilise the opportunity when the Centre gave a green signal in 2015 for location of the National Investment and Manufacturing Zone(NIMS) in Prakasam district, which could generate lakhs of jobs for the youth. Though the Centre had committed itself to sanctioning a new railway zone for the State, the ruling TDP was resorting to rabble-rousing with ulterior political motives, he alleged.
Reacting to reports that the TDP was gearing up for ties with the Congress for the 2019 polls, he said his prediction that the Chief Minister, who started his political career in the Congress party, would sooner or later turn his party into ‘Telugu Desam Congress Party’ would come true.
Taking objection to the State government issuing Amaravati Bonds at a ‘high rate of interest’, he said instead of making it available to private investors the government should throw it open to the general public in the State who would be eager to subscribe to it.
Probe sought
The State government should agree for a special audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General(CAG) and a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged ‘diversion’ of over ₹53,000 crore to more than 58,000 PD accounts, he said, adding, “The BJP will not allow the TDP go scot free.”
Stepping up offensive against State Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, he asked how could the Finance Minister of the cash-strapped State undergo dental treatment in a hospital in Singapore at a high cost when root canal treatment was very much available within the State.