AP govt, stakeholders should devise mechanism to ensure

Union Minister G Kishan Reddy on Sunday said the Andhra Pradesh government and all stakeholders should devise a mechanism to ensure justice to the farmers, who parted with their lands for the development of its capital Amaravati.

Irate farmers and their families have been protesting the recommendations of an experts committee mooting distribution of "capital functions", and insisting that the Andhra Pradesh government not shift the state capital from Amaravati.

The agitated farmers have been organising a series of agitations in Amaravati region for the last couple of days denouncing Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy's three capitals theory.

"I request all stakeholders--political parties and government to sit and discuss and solve the issue... It is the state government's responsibility to ensure that the farmers who parted with their lands for the construction of Amaravati get justice," Reddy told reporters here after a group of farmers from Amaravati met him over the matter.

The Union Minister of State for Home further said it has been six years since Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh.

The Andhra Pradesh government had pooled land for the construction of capital Amaravati but recent statements by Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy favouring three capitals has cauysed people are expressing concerns.

"I request everybody to stand in support of the farmers, which ever government is in power," he said.

On December 17, Jagan had mooted the idea of having three capitals for Andhra Pradesh, with the executive capital in Visakhapatnam, legislative capital in Amaravati and judicial capital in Kurnool, spread over the three predominant regions of the state.

Based on the recommendations submitted by two committees in this regard, the Jagan government constituted a high- powered committee of ministers and bureaucrats to study the suggestions and come out with a way forward on decentralised development.

The panel was set up in the backdrop of farmers in Amaravati region, who gave up their fertile lands for the capital, being on an agitation path.