Andhra Pradesh: Cabinet okays the Swiss challenge proposal

Vijayawada: The Cabinet has approved the APCRDA Swiss Challenge proposals to develop seed capital, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said at the Cabinet meet held on Tuesday at Velagapudi Secretariat. In the ratio of 42:58, a joint venture will be floated with the state-owned Amaravati Development Partner (ADP) and the Singaporean companies, which could be named as Consortium of Amaravati Develop-ment Partners, to oversee the capital construction, the CM said at a media briefing on Tuesday.

Mr Naidu said the Singaporean Consortium (Ascendas-Singbridge, Sembcorp) would be allowed to build the seed capital in an area of 6.84 sq km, even as 1,691 acres would be kept under the control of the ADP. Initially, 50 acres of land will be allotted either for free or nominal rates to the consortium for constructing iconic structures in the capital city. Another 200 acres of land will be alienated in favour of the master developer in the first phase for Rs 4 crore per acre and the rest of the land released in the next two phases.
The AP Cabinet had discussed in detail on the Swiss Challenge proposals as this had become controversial earlier. For this, the state government had even amended the AP Infrastructure Development Enabled Act and finally succeeded in Swiss Challenge.

The Cabinet decided to follow strictly the withdrawal of red beacons on VIP vehicles according to the decision of the Union government. The Cabinet approved to appoint Olympics champion P.V. Sindhu as Group-I officer. For this, the state Cabinet had decided to introduce the proposal to amend Regulation of appointment to Public Services and Rationalisation of Staff Pattern and Pay Structure Act II-1994 in the Assembly. The Cabinet approved 36 acres of land in Endada and Rishikonda to Gitam University to establish innovative and distance education centre.

It congratulated Vishwanath for winning the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. The Cabinet also congratulated the production team of Baahubali-2. It approved to construct 4 lakh houses in the coming two years by AP State Housing Corporation to two lakhs in current fiscal year and another two lakhs in the next at a cost of Rs 1.5 lakh per unit, out of which Rs 92,000 will be state government subsidy, Rs 3,000 for IHHL, and Rs 55,000 under MGNREGA funds.

The Cabinet approved the proposal to recruit 800 police constables in AP under direct recruitment. This is to fill the vacant 600 civil constables and 200 AR constable posts. With this, Rs 20.53 crore additional burden will be put on the government and these posts are equally shared between Visakha rural, Visakha City, East and West Godavari districts. It decided to upgrade the 25 posts of divisional accounts officers Grade-II posts to divisional accounts officer Grade-I posts. With this, the burden to the state government will be Rs 2.55 crore.

The Cabinet proposed to close the sub-jails of Rajahmundry, Rajole, Alamur, Kandukur, Bhimili, Aluru, Rayadur-gam, Madakasira and Po-dili and create new posts in jails of Visakhapatnam, Kadapa central prisons, Kurnool, Vijaya-wada and Eluru districts.