Vijayawada: If the state government so wants, it can confine the capital city to just two mandals. Every mandal in the limits of Krishna and Guntur districts has on an average 30,000 acres of land, both state-owned and private.
About 30 per cent of this area is being utilised for residential purposes, roads, tanks and other structures. While some mandals have sizable government lands, others have only private lands. Based on field reports, the government may confine the capital region to three to four mandals in Krishna and Guntur districts, said retired MRO Basha.
This factor has assumed significance since land acquisition and availability is now the uppermost thought in the minds of the people of these two districts.
The government has already announced that it will acquire land on a 60:40 ration on development basis for the capital. In this backdrop, land acquisition and the probable capital region are the two hot topics. Some mandals are being seen as the obvious choice for capital establishment.
For example, Amravati mandal has about 50,000 acres of land (private and state-owned). “However, there is no vacant government land in the mandal,” said MRO Mallikarjuna Rao.
Tadepalli mandal is about the same area but it has about 10,000 acres of government land, said the MRO.
There is about 35,000 acres of land available in Ibrahimpatnam mandal, of which 1,200 acres is state-owned, said MRO Harihara Bhushan. “All these lands are suitable to establish the capital. We have already submitted a report to the government,” Mr Bhushan said.
Nuzvid, Bapulapadu, Musunuru mandals have about the same extent of land, with about 40,000 acres of state-owned land available in these mandals, said Musunuru MRO Vanajakshi.
Similarly, all other mandals between 30,000 and 50,000 acres of land, which the government could acquire and establish the capital,” said farmers’ leader A. Venkatappa Reddy.
