Next AP capital: Vijayawada, Vizag or Tirupati?
VIJAYAWADA: A commercial hub, it is also politically active, sociologically dominant and agriculturally rich round the year with crops like paddy, tobacco, cotton, chilli and sugarcane. Other contenders like Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and Vishakaptnam are scattered but Vijayawada is centrally located for both regions. It has an airport at Gannavaram, which could be expanded into an international one. It has a HC bench and the city is close to Machilipatnam port, making it well connected by land, air and sea with road/rail connection to all metros in the country. Availability of land between Vijayawada and Guntur could come in handy.
VISAKHAPATNAM : With industrial investments touching Rs 1.6 lakh crores involving steel, petroleum, fertilizer, zinc smelting, heavy industry, ship building, it has also three major ports along with atomic energy, naval establishments, three universities. The new world business IT hub was a feather in the city's cap and the port city could emerge as a frontrunner. It is the one of the fastest growing cities in the world and occupies a pivotal place on the East Coast corridor between Kolkata and Chennai. No city in the coastal Andhra has as many public sector units as Vizag has. Besides, it is well connected by land, air and sea. The city's stock is set to go up with the coming up of defence establishments like BARC and DRDA projects and PCPIR industrial corridor project. It also has many educational institutions offering management, technical and engineering courses — Andhra University, GITAM University and Law University to name a few and there's a proposal to build a world university here. It has Pharma city and many more industries are also in the pipeline.
TIRUPATI: They say you get salvation at the feet of Lord Balaji and in Andhra Pradesh all good work is begun in the Lord's abode. It's the most visited pilgrim centre in the country and most sought after pilgrimage centre on a par with the Vatican city. Not only the rich and mighty frequent Tirumala for a darshan of Lord Venkateswara but Tirupati's prominence is doubled by the visits of international leadersand influential people. With the international airport and international railway station in the offing, the chances of Tirupati emerging as the capital of Andhra state cannot be ruled out. What more, the Tirumala temple administration is the richest religious corporate in the country with an annual turnover of Rs 1,000 crore which could come in handy for the development of the city, which has a population of three lakhs. The also has six universities.
Popularity: 3% [?]
vizag is the most suitable place for giving capital status, its population is 2million, it is getting a world class central university, it is head quarters of Eastern naval command, it has several industries which are not listed above viz. Hindusthan Ship yard taken over recently by defence, BHPV a premier public sector recently taken over by BHEL, 2000mw NTPC Thermal power plant, Brandix apperal city, Southasia LPG Ltd, only LPG cavern in asia which can store 70000MT LPG in stone carved cavern, in the world there is only more in france, its owners are HPCL, Total france, Vizag is a natural harbour with multi product port which handles 65million tonnes an year a No.1 PORT in India, it has another port called 15 million handling capacity Gangavaram port which is the deepest port in Asia with 27mtr draft which can 2.5 lac Tonnes ships into it, It also has contaner terminal run Dubai ports. It has 2000 bed teaching hospital opened in 1823 by King GeorgeIV a super speciality hospital and another recently opened 1300 bed super speciality hospital VIMS. The main attaraction of the city is its beauty, several language films, telugu, hindi, oriya, tamil are shot here, several film studios are under construction here now. The city recently receved best city award from prime minister for spending 40% funds on its BRTS project making city roads into 250 mtr wide. visakhapatnam railway division earns 4000 crores as its revenue every year next to Mumbai. its airport got recent upgradation as international airport. it has the following industries: Head qtrs of Dredging corpoaration of india, 15 million tonnes crude petro refinery by HPCL, 3million tonnes shore based integrated steel plant (expansion is going on for 20million capacity), it has 8 naval bases and another alternate naval base is under construction. Greater visakhapatnam muncipal corpoaration has been awarded stockhom challenge award for its web site some 7 years back. Visakhapatnam is a major tourst attraction on east coast, the blockbusters Ek dhuje ke liye fully shot at Vizag barring one song in Goa. it has enchanting hill valleys within 90km distance in eastern ghats. the city is located on some 50 hillocks, it is called as Vizag, VISAKHAPATNAM, WALTAIR all one a most suitable place for capital status with huge government land available.