Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy to work from Visakhapatnam from Dasara

He also ordered the constitution of a committee to ensure their smooth shifting to the port city.

In fact, Jagan Mohan Reddy had said in April that he would be shifting to Visakhapatnam in September, and now he has postponed the date to 24 October.

The chief minister’s announcement that he would be shifting to Visakhapatnam by Dasara assumed importance as he is apparently trying to strike the iron while it is yet hot.

The TDP, at present, is not in a position to organise any agitations against Jagan Mohan Reddy’s three-capital philosophy and rubbish his view that it would decentralise administration and spur equitable development in all parts of the state.

The TDP is labouring to navigate through the choppy political waters after Naidu’s arrest in a corruption case.

Referring to the Assembly elections, scheduled for next year, the chief minister also reportedly indicated that he would go by the decision of the Union government on how it intends to hold elections. He said that the state would follow the Centre’s line on polls, whether simultaneous or at different times.

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Other Cabinet decisions

Meanwhile, the Cabinet unveiled a new scheme, the Jagananna Civil Services Incentive, on Wednesday, under which the students from Andhra Pradesh who cleared the UPSC Civil Service Preliminary examination would get ₹50,000 and those who clear its Mains examination, ₹1 lakh.

By another decision, the Cabinet approved the Guaranteed Pension Scheme (GPS) Draft Bill which is intended to replace the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

Under the GPS, 50 percent of the last pay of an employee would be paid as a pension. This is in contrast to the payment of 20.3 percent of the basic salary as a pension.

The state government had claimed in the past that the GPS is better than CPS as the former seeks to bestow more benefits to the employees after their superannuation.

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The Cabinet felt that by the time an employee retires from service, he should own a house site, with the state government having its responsibility.

It also announced the Arogya Shree which would cover the retired employees and their children. The children would also be covered under the fee reimbursement scheme.

The other bills that the Cabinet cleared were the Contractual Employees Regularization Draft Bill, the Andhra Pradesh Vaidya Vidhana Parishad Amendment Bill, and the Private Universities Act Amendment Bill.

The Cabinet also cleared proposals to reserve half of the seats in Kurupam engineering college to tribals, and the construction of 8,424 houses for Polavaram flood victims.