The AP government has reportedly decided to allocate the Governorpet-2 RTC depot site located at the Police Control Room Junction near Pandit Nehru Bus Stand to Lulu Group to set up a Lulu Mall in Vijayawada. It is known that Lulu Group has come forward to set up malls in Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada with a total investment of Rs 1,222 crore and 1,500 people will be employed.
With this, the AP Industrial Infrastructure Investment Corporation (APIIC) has examined the allotment of land required to set up a Lulu Mall in Vijayawada. The APIIC MD Abhishek Kishore recently wrote a letter to RTC MD Dwaraka Tirumala Rao requesting that the depot site be given to them. The RTC MD has also received a suggestion from government officials to give the land to Lulu Mall.
The Governorpet-2 RTC depot is spread over an area of about 5 acres. In addition to Governorpet-2, buses belonging to the first depot are also kept here. The offices of the managers of RTC depots 1 and 2 are also located here. Now, if this land is given for Lulu Mall, the government is planning to allocate 5 acres of land to the RTC near Gollapudi as an alternative.
The State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB) meeting was held on Thursday, in which the projects of the Lulu Group company were approved. With this, RTC sources say that the Governorpet-2 RTC depot site will soon be allotted to the company. In the past, the Municipal Corporation had set up a park with figures made of iron scrap material on some part of this land.
The place where the current Governorpet-2 RTC depot is located was once the Vijayawada bus stand. The Vijayawada-1 RTC depot was also located there. When NTR was the CM, the construction of Pandit Nehru Bus Stand (PNBS) was undertaken in 1990.
The government has already issued orders to allocate land in Visakhapatnam to Lulu Group through APIIC for the construction of a shopping mall and hypermarket to be built by Lulu Group. In March this year, the government issued orders to the VMRDA to transfer 13.43 acres of land located in Harbor Park on Visakhapatnam Beach Road to APIIC.