Amid uproarious scenes in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday ended the suspense over the location of the state capital by announcing it will be built near Vijayawada.

Even as YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) legislators obstructed Naidu from reading his speech and stormed the well, demanding a debate on the recommendations of the Sivaramakrishnan Committee on the capital's location, Nadiu quickly read out the cabinet resolution adopted on September 1.

"The cabinet of Andhra Pradesh has resolved to locate the capital city in a central place of the state around Vijayawada, and to go for a decentralized development of the state with three mega cities and 14 smart cities," Naidu said amid applause from the treasury benches and sloganeering by the opposition. "It is proposed to go for land pooling system for acquiring land to build the capital, which will be worked out by a cabinet sub-committee."

Asserting the TDP government's right to take a decision on the capital, Naidu said the state's people had given it the mandate to do so and the YSRCP should just sit in the opposition benches. He claimed the cabinet decision was a reflection of the popular sentiment. "Nearly 50 per cent of the representations received by the Sivaramakrishnan Committee favoured Vijayawada-Guntur region as the best location for the capital city," he said.

He said Vijayawada as capital would enable equal access to people of all regions in the state, adding that the land pooling scheme to consolidate the land required for the capital would create a win-win situation for private landholders and the government. "We will make Vijayawada a people's capital," the chief minister said.