Visakhapatnam: Former minister and YSRCP Anakapalli district president Gudivada Amarnath pointed out that the NDA government is behaving like a real estate agency by distributing public lands at throwaway prices to the party followers and supporters.

At a media conference organised in Visakhapatnam on Sunday, he stated that the lands were given away to favouring companies and real estate groups, ignoring public interest.

Criticising that the government has failed in keeping its election promises, Amarnath said the TDP-led coalition government has been involved in massive irregularities in land allocations in Visakhapatnam over the past 15 months.

He pointed out that while the previous YSRCP government planned to develop Visakhapatnam into a major IT destination on par with Hyderabad, the present government is diverting valuable lands to companies with no track record. Citing examples, he stated that prime lands worth thousands of crores of rupees were handed over to companies at rates as low as Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore per acre. Amarnath said this allocation had failed to generate even a single IT job for the youth in the state. The former minister stated that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Minister Nara Lokesh were supervising these shady land deals, and that public land was being looted to benefit their associates and supporters. “Why similar land allocations are not being made in Amaravati and why the TDP was not drawing investments there,” he questioned, criticising Naidu’s frequent Singapore visits aimed at renewing old ties. Amarnath announced that YSRCP would launch a mass movement against the land scam and hold the coalition government accountable for diverting public wealth for personal gain.