KCR, Badal to be among Naidu's guests at Amaravati event

They are among 17 VIPs who will share the dais with Narendra Modi at a stone laying ceremony for AP's new capital city

Chief minister of the sibling state of Telangana, K Chandra Sekhara Rao, and Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal are among the 17 prominent people who will be sharing the dais with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a grand foundation laying ceremony being held near Vijayawada for the new capital city on Thursday.

After a year of bitter personal animosities between the two, Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu personally visited Rao's camp office in Hyderabad on Sunday and invited him for the function. Reciprocating Naidu's gesture in equal measure,Telangana chief minister has readily accepted the invitation to attend the event.

Apart from the three chief ministers, AP and Tamil Nadu governors E S L Narasimhan and K Rosaiah and the four Union Ministers from AP, Union Minister Bhandaru Dattatreya, who hails from Telangana, ministers from Singapore and Japan will be among the other guests to be seated on the main stage, according to AP government's media advisor Parakala Prabhakar.

A large number of industrialists from across the country are also expected to attend the event as the state government had extended invitations to the top 500 industrial houses. Elaborate arrangements were being made to accommodate close to 1.5 lakh people at the venue and over 8,500 police personnel were deployed as part of the security arrangements.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for the new capital, Amaravati, which was named after a historic town located some 25 kms from the site on the banks of river Krishna.

Naidu government had already approved the master plans for the capital city and the surrounding capital region. The government proposes to execute the master plan through private investments in a public-private partnership (PPP) mode. Along with the administrative facilities the government wants to build a couple of iconic sky scrapers in the core of the capital city before the next elections as it wants to show case these as a sample of its commitment for the growth and development of the state.

During his visit, Prime Minister Modi is also laying the foundation stone for a dedicated mobile handset manufacturing facility in Tirupati tomorrow. "Tomorrow will be another important milestone to leverage the state's ability to attract further investments into this sector," said Pankaj Mohindroo, national president of Indian Cellular Association (ICA). A new integrated terminal at Tirupati airport is also being inaugurated by the Prime Minister.

---

ends