New capital: AP Minister bats for Guntur-Vijayawada

Andhra Pradesh Minister P Narayana, heading a government panel to build a new capital city, today said Guntur-Vijayawada cluster is being considered as a possible location given its easy accessibility from all the 13 districts of the truncated state.
Talking to reporters here, he said Visakhapatnam is not being considered for the new capital as the port city is located on one corner of the State.
Guntur-Vijayawada cluster is centrally-located and accessible from other districts, making it a possible site for the new capital, the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister said.
When pointed out that Bangalore and Chennai, located on one corner of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu respectively, have been successful capital cities, he said these cities had been developed earlier.

"Those cities were historically developed on their own earlier. Now that we have got a chance to develop a new capital, we should see to it is accessible to everyone and that's what is in Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's mind," Narayana said.
To avoid Hyderabad model of development, where many institutions are concentrated at one place, the AP Government decided to opt for decentralised growth by proposing to set up 11 premier educational institutions in different districts post bifurcation with help from the Centre, he said.

A Central team will soon visit all the districts for technical evaluation of the land sites that were identified by the respective local administration for establishing these institutions, the Minister said.

Three to four sites have been identified by the respective local administrations in each district, he said.
Earlier in the day, Narayana along with State HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao visited certain sites in the city to identify the location for the proposed Indian Institute of Management (IIM).