Babu’s Singaporean Snags Multiply

Singapore has been Chandrababu’s financial dream land for the last 25 years. While his critics say thata large amount of his investments are heaped over there, his devotees argue that Babu explored and invented the appropriate development formulae for A.P. in Singapore’s progress. Whatever be the reason, Chandrababu’s obsession for the Singaporean development formulae is beyond doubt. It played a major role in finalizing the Singaporean partners in the construction of Amaravati, the proposed Capital City for AP.

As the date for laying the foundation stone for the new Capital is getting closer the Singaporean snags for Babu are getting multiplied. The Singaporean partners of the Capital region development are raising newer queries every day.

First of them is concentrated around the yet to be finalized land acquisition process. The concluded agreements between the State and some farmers not being in tune with existing laws is another objection raised by the Singapore companies. Singapore partners are pointing at the fact that compensation for the lands that fall under the Capital Area, already taken over by the government, was not duly paid.

Another issue troubling the Singapore partners is that the present government survives till 2019 only. No one knows who would take over the reins after that. And, in any probability the development work to be undertaken at Amaravati would not be over by 2019. In such a situation uncertainty would loom large on the heads of the Singapore partners. No business firm would invite such circumstances. Hence the Singapore partners are applying pressure on Babu&Co to produce a collateral security from the Govt. of India for all the developmental agreements.

It’s anybody’s guess that no Central Govt. would provide such collateral security agreements. Particularly in this case, PM Modi, who’s not at all pleased by the stance of Babu these days, would never entertain such obligations. A recent hint for this can be drawn from the Modi’s Govt. not caring for Babu’s invitations, for the foundation stone laying ceremony, extended to the rulers of Japan and Singapore. Needless to mention here that a valid invitation to a foreign ruler must be extended by the Central Govt. It’s equally pointless to state that the Central Govt. would behave differently in the case of providing collateral security for Babu’s Singaporean projects.