Jagan Planning Big For Donakonda?

Though located in the backward area of Palnadu, Donakonda in Prakasam district hogged the limelight a few years ago when the Andhra Pradesh state government had plans to make it the capital city. In the TDP regime, the officials felt that the forest and government lands together in this area would come up to 50,000 acres and would be sufficient to build the capital for Navyandhra Pradesh.

Accordingly, there was wide publicity that the capital would come up in the place and realtors tried to make the most of it. The prices of land in Donakonda and surrounding places increased multi-fold. Believing that Donakonda would become the capital in view of the forest and government lands spread in a large extent, many people bought plots in the area. However, after the capital was shifted to Amaravati, people who had bought the lands had sold them off and made money. After Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy made the proposal of three capitals in the Assembly, Donakonda was conveniently forgotten.

Recently, Donakonda has popped up into prominence again as there is buzz that it would be transformed into an industrial corridor. It is learnt that the YCP government has big plans to make it into an activity hub by setting up Navy, Defence and solar projects in the place.

In fact, there was discussion about industrial corridor during the TDP rule itself but it did not take shape. The YCP government, under the leadership of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, is planning to set up the Navy and Defence headquarters, apart from establishing a solar project.

It is learnt that the AP government has also given nod to setting up national-level industries in Donakonda.

A1,000-MW solar plant is being planned here to provide free power to farmers in the state. The officials reportedly surveyed 5,000 acres in this area for this purpose and readied a report on the same. It is learnt that the officials had identified several survey numbers in Rudrasamudram, Bhumanapalli, Manginapudi areas in Donakonda for the solar power plant.

Sources said that the power project would be completed at a cost of Rs 4,000 crore in a year and that power would be generated in the next year. This project is expected to provide jobs to 10,000 jobs and the locals are eagerly waiting for the Chief Minister to lay the foundation stone for it. They hope that the lives of the youth in the area will become better if they can get employed and earn a livelihood.

If all goes as per the plan, these projects are likely to get some good name to Jagan who is facing severe criticism for not focusing on revenue generation. The opposition parties are slamming the CM for concentrating only on welfare programmes and distributing money to the beneficiaries even by taking loans in huge amounts, which they say would push the state into deep debts.

Economists opine that distribution of wealth alone is not sufficient for the functioning of a government and that wealth needs to be generated to meet the increasing expenditure.