Andhra Pradesh govt to appeal to Centre to use 2010 questionnaire for NPR

The Andhra Pradesh government is going to make an appeal to the Centre to use the 2010 questionnaire for National Population Register (NPR) exercise, state Information and Public Relations Minister Perni Venkatramaiah said here on Wednesday.

He added that the state government has decided to keep the NPR exercise in abeyance for now as it is creating fears in a section of the population.

"The Andhra Pradesh cabinet has decided to make an appeal to the central government to use the 2010 questionnaire only for NPR. As minorities are afraid of the new questionnaire, the central government should try to clear such fears. Until such assurance is given, the government should go with old questionnaire only," Venkataramaiah told reporters here.

"The cabinet has also decided to keep the process of NPR in the state in abeyance until the central government allows NPR with the old questionnaire," he added.

In a politically significant decision, the cabinet decided to cancel the allocation of two acres of land to Telugu Desam Party (TDP). That land will be returned to the government for departmental needs, the minister said.

It also approved the decision of forming a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for investigation of insider trading and "other illegal activities" that took place in the Amaravati region under the previous government.

In other decisions, the Andhra Pradesh government has decided to approve the distribution of house site 'patta' (lease) to 26 lakh poor people on March 25 which happens to be the Ugadi festival (Telugu New Year) day. A total of 43,141 acres of land will be cut into plots and disbursed to the poor. Those sites will be developed as 'YSR Jagananna Colonies'. The beneficiaries will have all the rights on the site and will be able to even sell the plots after five years.

The cabinet ratified the decision to minimize the range of Krishnapatnam port in order to develop Ramayapatnam port. It also decided to give permission to GMR Airport Ltd for the construction of Bhogapuram airport. However, the government decided to take back 500 acres out of the total land allocated for the Bhogapuram airport.

The cabinet also gave its nod for giving a guarantee to AP Seeds Corporation to raise a loan of Rs 500 crore from banks for the procurement of seeds for the forthcoming agricultural season. It approved to give a guarantee to AP Genco to raise a loan of Rs 1,000 crore each for the development of thermal power stations in Vijayawada and Krishnapatnam.

The minister said that the cabinet did not discuss the forthcoming local body elections, issue of Backward Classes reservations for local body elections and conducting the Budget session in the assembly.