Naidu will turn AP Adhunatan Pradesh: PM

Amaravati: Prime Minister Narenda Modi on Friday pledged Centre’s wholehearted support for developing Amaravati into a world-class tech-friendly greenfield city and hoped that it will turn into a growth engine for achieving Viksit Bharat by 2047.

He was addressing a mammoth gathering here beside the Velagapudi Secretariat to restart Amaravati 2.0 after the capital city project works, which were stopped during the previous regime. Earlier, Modi laid the foundation stone of the capital city works and launched and kickstated other Central-funded projects amounting to Rs60,000 crore. The capital city works mainly consist of a transport and road network with flood control systems, iconic towers for the new Secretariat, High Court, Assembly and official quarters.

Modi, who intermittently spoke in Telugu, said the Government of India will work shoulder-to-shoulder with the NDA coalition for building new Andhra Pradesh and make Amaravati a model city with futuristic and sustainable technologies.

Praising Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu as a tech-savvy politician, he said when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat he had keenly observed how he (Naidu) was encouraging the adoption of IT and laid the strong foundation for transformation of Hyderabad into an IT hub. He said now Naidu is trying to make use of AI and other advanced technologies.

The Prime Minister said the Centre would extend full support to complete Polavaram project and praised the speed with which Naidu is steering the TDP-led coalition in the State. He said, while referring to Naidu’s assertion that Amaravati works will be completed in three years and he should come to inaugurate the city, the Prime Minister said: “Andhra Pradesh is being put on the right track. I am imagining how the GDP of Andhra Pradesh will go up once Amaravati works are completed in three years.”

The Prime Minister also accepted an invitation from the Chief Minister to participate as chief guest in the 11th World Yoga Day celebrations in Visakhapatnam on June 21, saying this will certainly help project India in general and Andhra Pradesh in particular in promoting the benefits of practicing yoga.

The Prime Minister’s speech was translated into Telugu by Union Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu.

In his remarks, the Chief Minister said Andhra Pradesh is banking on the support of the Centre after ‘destruction’ done by the previous regime during 2019-24. “Now, we have brought the economy out of the ventilator and are working hard to build new Andhra Pradesh,” he said and conveyed his gratitude to the 29,000 farmers, who gave 34,000 acres for building Amaravati and fought relentlessly for a record 1,630 days against bifurcation of capital by the previous regime.

The Chief Minister welcomed the Union Cabinet decision to conduct a caste census and said the future of India is safe under the Modi regime. He pointed out that India, which ranked 10th when Modi took over as Prime Minister in 2014, has now emerged as the fifth largest economy. He said as per projections by the IMF, India will surpass Japan as the fourth largest economy. He said by 2047, as per projections, India may become No. 1 or 2 economy in the world.

Union Ministers P Chandrasekhar, Bhupatiraju Srinivasa Varma, Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan, Ministers and others attended.