With the news reports emerging that the Centre has acknowledged Visakhapatnam as the capital of AP in a reply to one of the questions in the recent session of the Lok Sabha, the Union Petroleum ministry on Sunday night clarified it’s reference to Visakhapatnam was ‘Reference City’ of the State.
Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri, in an annexure in the reply to a starred question in the Lok Sabha on July 26, on whether the Petroleum Ministry had assessed the impact of fuel price hike on the country’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the amount of tax, cess and excise duty collected by the Centre on petrol and diesel, mentioned Visakhapatnam as the capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Later, in a clarification issued over the weekend, the ministry said, “In the annexure, the details given in the third column mentioning the cities was only in the sense of giving a reference city for the purpose of state levies and duty prevalent in the concerned state. The heading of column number 3 may please be read as “Capital City/Reference City”. It said the Lok Sabha secretariat was also informed about the amendment.
It may be recalled that the Jagan Mohan Reddy government proposed to set up executive capital in Visakhapatnam, legislative capital in Amaravati and judicial capital in Kurnool and enacted legislation for the same. However, the government could not move further with the issue landing in court.
