Governor opens AP Assembly

​Amaravati: Governor ESL Narasimhan on Monday showcased the thrust areas of the AP government which includes “Reforms with a human face and welfare coupled with growth” while inaugurating the joint session of the Assembly and Council.

Sustaining double digit growth, quota for Kapus without hurting the interests of Backward Classes, grooming the successor state as globally competitive and happy state with a zero tolerance to corruption in governance formed part of the priorities at the top of the government’s agenda.

In his 50-minute prepared text also contained a wish list to be fulfilled by the NDA government involving a request for a legal status for the special package extended in lieu “My government believes in speedy implementation of economic reforms and effective fiscal management to alleviate poverty with sustained inclusive growth with an overarching objective of ensuring the fruits of development and welfare measures percolate down and reach the poorest of the poor,” Narasimhan said.

Depicting the process of rebuilding the state after bifurcation as a challenge, the Governor called for a steely resolve to turn the challenges into an opportunity. The Pattiseema lift irrigation project was a case in point to suggest that how the AP government has lived up to that resolve by completing the project in a record time and ensure transfer of the Godavari waters to the Krishna river. of the special category status.

Narasimhan reiterated the government’s commitment to complete the Polavaram project by 2019 as part of realizing the lofty objective of interlinking of rivers. The Governor unfolded the government’s mega housing plan under the NTR rural housing scheme with a promise to build 10 lakh houses and 4 lakh of them will be completed by the end of the current year.

Saying that provision of water security in the state is government’s utmost priority, he said the pending projects such as Thotapalli, Polavaram Right Canal, Gandikota, Telugu Ganga, Veligonda, Handri Neeva and Galeru Nagari projects within a specified timeline.

Invoking the TDP founder and former CM N T Rama Rao, the Governor informed that the government is preparing ground to establish Telugu Bhasha Pradhikara Samstha in place of Telugu Bhasha Sangham.
Stating that the government was focusing more on infrastructure development in urban areas, the Governor recalled its initiative to create a special purpose vehicle to meet urban challenges in Vijasakhapatnam, Kakinada and Tirupati.

He further adds, “Soon, metro rail in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam will be in the realms of reality”. He said it is proposed to widen the roads covering a distance of 372km into four-lane under the Visakhapatnam-Chennai Corridor Development Programme with the assistance of Asian Development Bank (ADB). It is also targeted to widen 1000km-long sinle lane network into two-lane roads during 2017-18, the governor explained.

Meanwhile, the government’s claims over double digit growth and attaining zero tolerance to corruption came in for a sharp criticism from the principal opposition of the YSRC. The YSRC leaders Y. Viseswara Reddy, Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy and P. Srikanth Reddy alleged that the state has earned notoriety for corruption at all levels during the TDP regime.

When more than 80 per cent of crops failed in the four Rayalaseema districts and the other parts of the state due to acute drought conditions and migration of rural folks to the neighbouring states for work became routine, how could the double digit growth be a reality, they questioned.