Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday said it was the “moral responsibility” of the Centre to handhold Andhra Pradesh, which he likened to a “sixteen-month-old baby” that needed nurturing to rise to the level of its sibling southern States.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Hindu on Tuesday, the Chief Minister spoke of his passion for the State’s new capital, the foundation ceremony of which he is organising on a grand scale on October 22. He also explained why he was looking east rather than west for funds for his Amaravati project, asserted that development cannot be achieved if land was not used to attract investment and brushed aside the concerns raised by green activists.
Asked if the grand scale of the foundation ceremony was a ploy to bring atmospheric pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the chief guest, to announce a hefty special financial package for Amaravati, Mr. Naidu said, “I don’t want to comment on that. There is the (Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation) bifurcation Act. There are some provisions in the Act. There are some promises on how the Government of India is going to help us.”
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Asked to explain why his investment attraction efforts have been concentrated on Singapore, Japan and China, despite the slowdown of their economies, the Chief Minister said this was a strategic ploy: he seeks association with Singapore because he admires that city-state’s work ethic and adherence to best practices; Japan and China are both going through a recession and therefore needed to invest in promising locations to grow out of it, and each had investible surpluses and technological heft.
He said he would not rule out turning to the west for investment but after examining the offers made by eastern nations. “This is strategic,” he said, adding “there is no safer place to invest than India and no better state than Andhra Pradesh.”
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Asked why he was concentrating all his energies on the upcoming capital, he said Andhra Pradesh needed a capital to be the driver of its economy and was an essential part of building a State in the league of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana, each of which had a metropolitan city as capital.
Green clearances
On the controversy surrounding environmental clearances for Amaravati, Mr. Naidu asserted that the clearances would come automatically. He said the required information was furnished to the National Green Tribunal and took a dig at his green critics: “Everybody wants to have status quo forever and remain in poverty. They don’t want to move forward.”