State government is planning for the denotification of forest lands in and around Vijayawada in the radius of 20 Kilometers. The state government has prepared the proposals and will be sending them to the Center very soon. It was promised in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act that forest lands will be allowed to denotify for Andhra Pradesh’s new capital.
In fact there are 37200 acres of forest lands in and around Vijayawada. But only 2000 acres will denotified for now. Some of these lands have hills and stones which will be suitable for construction of buildings. Government may use these lands for the construction of several Central Universities like NIT. These lands are in Sooraram, Metlapalli, Veerapanenigudem villages of Agiripalli and Gannavaram mandals.
The remaining forest lands will be used in the future according to the requirements. According to the law, the government had to allocate lands for forest at some other area for denotifying these lands.
