Guntur: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, launched the land pooling process for the capital in Tullur on Thursday.
Promising to build a world-class capital, better than New Delhi and similar to Singapore, he appealed to the locals in the capital region villages to cooperate with the state government by handing over their lands before Sankranti.
After receiving pattadar passbooks, Mr Naidu announced that Tullur has started functioning as the capital and locals are now residents of the new capital.
D. Rama Rao, a farmer, was the first to offer 50 acre of farmland along with a donation of Rs 50,000 for the capital. He handed over pattadar passbooks of his land to Mr Naidu.
Farmers P. Srinivas Rao, J. Murali and A. Ganeshprasad also presented pattadar passbooks of their lands to the Chief Minister. These farmers, together, offered 161 acre of lands for the new capital.
Admitting that land prices have fallen over the past few days, Mr Naidu told the people that this is common during the development process, but prices would increase once development begins.
He suggested that the farmers should not sell their lands for normal prices in the prevailing situation, but give lands for the new capital which would give better prices in the future.
The CM announced that will bring directorates/commissionarates of all government departments by June or July to the capital region.
Mr Naidu said that his manasu (heart) did not allow him to stay in Hyderabad on New Year, which is why he came to Vijayawada on Wednesday night.
However, he later thought that staying in Vijayawada would be injustice to the new capital and hence, he immediately decided to join the “Navyandhra” celebrations in Tullur.
