Businessmen shift as Bhadradri loses sheen in Telangana

Khammam: Is the holy town of Bhadrachalam, in Telangana, located on the bank of River Godavari, losing its sheen? This is the question doing the rounds among the people of Khammam district.

Firstly, the pruning of the town from 10 km radius to the five km after merging the villages of Bhadra-chalam mandal except the holy town in Andhra Pradesh became a major problem. There is no scope for the expansion of the town in the future and it leads to the lessening of houses and land prices in the town.

Secondly, the people from 325 habitations in the seven mandals that were transferred to Andhra Pradesh are not coming to Bhadrachalam and these people preferred to go Jangareddygudem in West Godavari district and Rampachodavaram in East Godavari district.

“There is no meaning of having bank accounts in Bhadrachalam, which is now in other state. Because of it, they cancelled their accounts and opened it in their native mandal headquarters,” said Charugulla Ramesh, a businessman in Bhadrachalam, adding that these people used to buy various products in the town earlier, but not anymore.

The town remained like a Peninsula surrounded by river Godavari on three sides. The business of holy town is around '100 crore per month at present against the earlier Rs 200 crore.

Even, the people of Vazed and Venkatapuram mandals which were part of Telangana are not coming to Bhadrachalam after opening of the bridge on river Godavari near Vazed and they are going to Eturnagaram now.

S. Satyanarayana, a businessman, said that he took a decision of shifting to Khammam because of the lessening of scope for business expansion here. The RTC cut down their services to 50 per cent to Kunta, Rajahmundry and Eluru.