Panel on Capital lands sans chairman

• Plans to stay in Vizag till May 10
• To tour Vijayawada till May 13

Visakhapatnam: The expert committee headed by former Urban Development Secretary K Sivaramakrishnan, set up to study various alternatives regarding the new capital for the successor state of Andhra Pradesh, arrived in the city without its chairman on Friday.

Sivaramakrishnan, it was said, could not make it due to indisposition. Media personnel were present in large numbers as well as some social activists, when the team landed at the airport by the evening flight of Air India from New Delhi.

However, it drove away immediately to the Government Circuit House, where it will stay during the next two days. Media persons followed the team to the Circuit House in the hope of eliciting information from the Capital Committee members who are set to begin the exercise on the new capital.

The expert committees scheduled will be finalised later in the evening with the involvement of the Vice-Chairman of Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority N Yuvaraj, and the Commissioner of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation MV Satyanarayana. It is likely to hold a meeting in VUDA followed by visits to places in the city.

The committee is also likely to meet the officials at the Collectorate on Saturday and also elicit public opinion on the new capital, it is said.

The committee members who arrived on Friday include Dr Rathin Roy, Director, Indian Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, Aromar Revi, Director, Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bangalore, J Shah, Director, National Institute for Urban Affairs, New Delhi, Prof KT Ravindran, former Dean of School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and P Thimma Reddy, Director of Town and Country Planning, Hyderabad. The team will leave for Vijayawada on May 11 either by road or by train. It will stay in Vijayawada till May 13 and later leave for Hyderabad.