Named after the celestial capital of Lord Indra, Amaravati is expected to be an Indian city with all the modernity and yet with a leafy ambience. The city is going to be modelled on Singapore, where there are parks for the citizens to enjoy, rivers to boat ride and above all the fresh air from the green canopy.
The proponents of this idea have resorted to crowdfunding to make this dream city a reality. They have to deal with the strenuous work of converting dust and farms into an ethereal city on earth. To transform Amaravati from a land of few shiny buildings, villages and acres of agricultural land to the envisioned form about $15 billion is needed.
The erstwhile capital of Andhra Pradesh was the sprawling tech city of Hyderabad but during the state bifurcation in 2014, Hyderabad was assigned to Telangana and it has remained as the combined capital city for both Andhra and Telangana till now. Under this circumstances, Andhra authorities decided to build a brand new centre of power about 275kms away from Hyderabad, on the banks of river Krishna.
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This inspiring effort by the state of Andhra should be a textbook study for Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala only because of the existence of secretariat. Thiruvananthapuram city has been neglected by the ruling LDF and erstwhile UDF front equally, using the taxpayers’ money only for the development of North Kerala districts like Kozhikode, Malappuram and Ernakulam. Amaravati comes in the list of planned cities like Lutyen’s Delhi and Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh. Correcting the slowness in action, Thiruvananthapuram can definitely use the Singapore model development to preserve its cultural places, greenery and bring in development too.
Sreedhar Cherukuri, Commissioner of Andhra’s Capital Regional Development Authority, said that it would be an Indian city like no other. Amaravati had been envisioned as a metropolis free of the chaos, traffic and air pollution.
An official told AFP that Amaravati’s anticipated 3.5 million inhabitants would enjoy efficient public transport including a monorail and metro network. But all these will not be done at the cost of the environment as half of the city will be under the green canopy like in New York’s Central Park.
Advice about an extensive canal system was provided by consultants from Amsterdam and also there were expert opinions from Singapore and Japan.The official said that everything had been planned to the last detail and that they(Andhra officials) had taken the best ideas from around two dozen global cities but that perhaps came closest to Singapore in its inspiration.
Anyway, the saddening thing is that the work is progressing very slowly even though it has been 3 years since PM Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone. The city still wears a deserted look pouring water to the sparky thoughts of a dream city in reality. The CM’s office is amidst an island of modern buildings situated in the middle of fields thanks to the relocation after bifurcation. People are now afraid that Amaravati will be a Utopian dream. Half finished settlements are seen near the farmlands, most of them with inadequate transport facilities. There have been delays in the case of construction of a riverfront, housing and the public transport. A University official standing at a huge but largely empty campus in the planned city told the media persons that they(people) came there because it really had the plans and potential to become a global city. The official added that the infrastructural developments, especially road construction had been slow.K.Nageshwar, an independent legislator from Telangana opined that nothing much had happened on the ground in Amaravati and it was still more dream than a reality.
Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu had said in 2014 that the Amaravati Project, unlike anything, was ever seen in India would be completed within 5 years. But it seems now that the bureaucracy has been reluctantly slow in the execution of his dream. Naidu, running the state from his high tech office in Amaravati, says that a magnificent city will rise from the plains one day. He told AFP that he was not changing any plans for Amaravati and he only had to work harder to make it a reality. The official overseeing Amaravati’s development, Mr.Cherukuri said that contracts worth $5 billion had already been issued, spurring the first phase of development. He was sad that they could not get the foreign investments as expected.
Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu blamed the centre for being unfair with his state on alleviating the loses due to the bifurcation. His view was that if the centre had conferred special status to Andhra, it would have ensured a stream of financial aid and incentives to make the dream capital true. This view culminated in tearing up of his ties with BJP and starting strong protests against the centre. But Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stood firm on the issue stating that Andhra got everything it had been promised.
Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu made an optimistic statement last month that Amaravati would be the happiest city in the world and promised a dedicated commission to gauge the well being of its future citizens. An Independent Legislator, K.Nageshwar anyhow refuted CM’s statement and said:”This is all optics and not substantial,”.He considered that Naidu very clearly had projected Amaravati more as an instrument of electioneering.”He can’t disown the capital now. I won’t be surprised if he’s still talking about it in 2019 and 2024 elections”, said K.Nageshwar.
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