HYDERABAD: Amid concerns over the fate of Andhra Pradesh capital Amaravati, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has set up a five-member official committee to decide the fate of the city and also recommend steps to decentralise the seat of administration across 13 districts of the state. The panel is expected to submit its report within six weeks, by October end.
The committee is led by retired IAS officer G.N. Rao (convener), Delhi School of Planning and architecture former dean K.T. Ravindran, its academic dean Prof Mahaveer, Ahmadabad based planning and urban transport expert Prof HM Shiavanda Swamy, and urban planners Dr Anjali Mohan and Prof K.B. Arunachalam. The committee will examine all aspects of the capital city needs of a state.
Jagan never concealed his reservations over suitability of Amaravati as the capital of bifurcated Andhra Pradesh as it was the choice of previous Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP government at the present site, on the banks of Krishna River between Vijayawada and Guntur cities. Jagan’s government has always maintained that there was “inside trading” during TDP regime on the capital city project.
Here “inside trading” means, then CM Naidu had deliberately leaked the information about the location of the capital city of Amaravati to selected leaders in his party and encouraged them to buy lands at cheap prices and later benefit out of the real estate boom. Andhra Municipal Administration Minister Botsa Satyanarayana had alleged that TDP leaders had purchased hundreds of acres around Amaravati.
The setting up of this panel is bound to kick off a political as well as economic storm as the local farmers, who had given around 33,000 acres of their lands under a pooling scheme, were agitating for retaining the capital city at the present location. Scores of business houses and companies of infrastructure, too, are worried over the possible consequences in case the capital was shifted from Amaravati.
Major trade and industry bodies in the country had expressed concern over the Jagan government’s moves on Amaravati. The Singapore government, too, voiced its reservations over possible downgrading of Amaravati or shifting the capital city altogether to another location. These objections were taken to the notice of the Prime Minister’s Office, which too is monitoring the developments in Andhra.
However, minister Satyanarayana said: “There won’t be any dilution of value of lands around Amaravati. Our government is only interested in improving the quality of capital city project by making it accessible to people from different regions. Let this official committee study the situation and give its recommendations, we will take a decision,” said the minister on Saturday.
Officials in the municipal administration department said that the committee is expected to begin its work from next week and would tour all the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh and look into demands or aspirations of people on the capital city.