Naidu-Jagan Reddy Political Battle Set To Raze Dream Capital Amaravati To The Ground

There is a story in the Mahabharata about the Kauravas바카라� visit to the grand Maya Sabha the Pandavas had built in Indraprastha. Duryodhana is repeatedly flummoxed by the palace바카라�s optical illusions바카라�he trips into a pool assuming it바카라�s a floor and walks into a wall as it resembles an archway. The Pandava princes mock him and he is left humiliated, albeit jealous of the magnificence of the palace and its visual splendours.

Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh바카라�s upcoming capital, is yet to acquire the splendour of the Pandava palace and largely ­remains a mirage on the horizon. It is still in the initial stages of construction바카라�while a few projects are in progress, many have not even begun. But 바카라�the city of the future바카라� has already ­become a sticking point for Andhra바카라�s new chief minister Jagan­mohan Reddy. In fact, Amaravati could soon become a grand illusion if Jagan has his way and scraps or downgrades the dream project of his predecessor, Chandrababu Naidu.

Naidu, who has dreamt big and planned bigger, had envisaged Ama­ravati as the newest metropolis of India, spread over 217 square kilometres. If Reddy  chooses to constrain it, the outcome could be just a conglomeration of high-rise towers housing government offices바카라�nowhere near his predecessor바카라�s grandiose plans. Two days before the laying of the foundation stone of Amaravati in October 2015, Naidu had declared: 바카라�People should ­remember me for what I have done. That is the inner energy which is driving me every second.바카라� If only the electorate had also ­remembered to re-elect him for a second term, Naidu could have been confident about flaunting Amaravati down the years.

Instead, the 69-year-old leader, smar­ting from the defeat in the recent assembly and Lok Sabha elections, has had to defend his own home from bulldozers after the present government deemed it an illegal construction. The plush four-bedroom bungalow, nestled amongst banana plantations on the banks of the Krishna in Undavalli village, had been Naidu바카라�s home for the past four years. Kitted out with a swimming pool and helipad, it belongs to his realtor friend, Lingameni Ramesh.

Officials notified its illegality three days after they demolished Praja Vedika, an auditorium the previous government built on the plot adjacent to his bungalow. Ironically, just two days ­before the demolition, Jagan held a district collectors바카라� conference at the auditorium for want of a better place, though he did ­remind the officials that they were meeting inside an illegal construction. Forty-eight hours later, he sent in bulldozers to raze the edifice.

Luckily for Naidu, Jagan has so far not sent bulldozers marching into the capital to bring down the concrete structures in various stages of completion. But the psychological ­destruction has already begun. He has announced the suspension of all construction and engineering work till the new government reviews them. In the aftermath of that decision, most of the work in Amaravati has either ground to a halt or is happening in deliberate slow motion.

바카라�Work on buildings that are 25 per cent complete has been stopped. Only those structures which are past the 75-per-cent completion mark have been ­allowed to proceed,바카라� admits a supervisor of a leading construction company. 바카라�But contractors themselves slowed the pace of work after the change of government. Many chose not to replenish their stocks until pending bills were cleared. A few have sent the casual ­labourers they ­employed back to their homes in Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.바카라�

Clouds of uncertainty hover over Naidu바카라�s dream venture. Amaravati could become a ghost town unless Jagan opts to put his muscle ­behind the project ­despite it being his political rival바카라�s brainchild. The megacity has already swallowed nearly Rs 45,000 crore of its projected overall cost of Rs 1.09 lakh crore. With so much public money ­already invested in Amaravati and the state needing a new capital, Jagan has reasons to see through its completion.

The signs, however, point in the other direction. The demolition of Praja Vedika and the decision to review Naidu바카라�s power purchase agreements with solar energy firms are clear pointers that the chief minister is on a confrontational path and Amaravati could end up as a collateral victim of the political battle.

The official line is that Jagan has not yet red-flagged Amaravati. 바카라�We made a three-hour presentation on the project to him last week. He raised a few questions and asked us to come back with more details in July. We are also waiting for the first tranche of $500 million of the total $1-billion loan from the World Bank. So it is too premature to jump to any conclusions.바카라� This was the cautious statement of P. Lakshmi Narasimham, commissioner of Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA), to Outlook.

But the state바카라�s finance minister, Bug­ganna Rajendranath Reddy, who heads a sub-committee probing the previous government바카라�s policies and projects, hinted that Amaravati, as ­envisaged by Chandrababu Naidu, could stutter to a halt. 바카라�The land pooling scheme (LPS), under which land was acquired, and land allocation to various organisations are being scrutinised. There is suspicion that people with insider knowledge about the location of the capital city purchased land in the region and profited by selling it to the government under LPS,바카라� he says.

바카라�The Singapore government, which had originally come up with the master plan of urban infrastructure, is now distancing itself from the project after reports of mismanagement and corruption. Even Norman Foster, the Lon­don-based architect chosen to design key buildings in the city, has complained about the interference of a Vastu specialist who is being paid Rs 3.5 lakh a month from APCRDA funds,바카라� alleges another senior minister.

If Amaravati does not materialise the way Naidu wanted it, Jagan has to come up with alternatives so that there are functional offices to keep the administrative ­machinery running. At present, the government works out of the Inte­rim Government Complex (IGC) at ­Vela­gapudi that was built by Naidu in less than a year using the Rs 1,500 crore the Modi government had released for the capital. The IGC consists of six buildings with 6 lakh sq ft of office space. It houses the CMO, legislative assembly and council, and secretariat. Built as a transit set-up before the government shifts to the new capital, the IGC, part of the Amaravati capital region, has already emerged as the Andhra government바카라�s hub. Keen to save money to fund his populist schemes, Jagan could permanently pitch his ­administrative camp here since it is up and running.

The only functional facility at Ama­ravati is a massive high court, which is said to be temporary as the judges are supposed to move to the Justice City later. Only the residences of government officials are under construction. 바카라�If the housing quarters do get completed, you would need support facilities like schools, hospitals and markets. There will be hundreds of unhappy government staff if they have to live in these units without an ecosystem of amenities,바카라� ­says a senior bureaucrat.  

It could also lead to discontent amongst the thousands of farmers who had handed over their agricultural lands for the project and were promised developed commercial and residential plots in return. Instead of choosing the land acquisition route, the Naidu government tempted the farmers of 25 revenue villages between Guntur and Vijayawada with the LPS. Wooed as potential partners in Amaravati, they willingly handed over their fields to the APCRDA. The government promised 200 square yards of commercial plots and 1,000 square yards of residential plots within ten years. To sell the idea, the Naidu government even took 123 farmers to Singapore to show the urban facilities that would be available to them.

As they wait for their promised plots, the 26,829 farmers are being compensated with an annuity of Rs 50,000 per year for every acre of cultivable land and Rs 30,000 for fallow land. 바카라�Till the Naidu government was in power, the annuity amount reached our bank ­account. But of late, there has been a delay, which has made us doubt if we will get anything in return for the lands we had surrendered,바카라� complains Gopi­nath of Yerrabalem village.

The Jagan government cannot even consider returning the unused land to the farmers for two reasons바카라�the fertile lands have been rendered fallow by three years of non-cultivation and construction and secondly, they have roads cutting through them. 바카라�It is a complicated situation for Jagan because the farmers will not accept the land in the present condition. Many of them have shifted to non-agricultural activities. He will have a farmers바카라� revolt on his hand if he attempts to shelve the Amaravati project and asks them to take back their lands,바카라� points out former TDP MLA T. Sravan Kumar.

Stalling the project could also send the wrong signal to potential investors, who have signed MoUs worth Rs 1.54 lakh crore with the APCRDA to start commercial activities after being lured by Naidu바카라�s promise of making Amaravati a global economic hub. 바카라�Since Naidu had shown how Hyderabad could be transformed in his earlier stints as CM, his two partnership summits seeking ­investments into Amaravati evoked an excellent response. If the overnment goes back on that promise, it could hurt future ­investments in Andhra,바카라� cautions C. Sudhakar of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers바카라� Association of India.

But the raging political rivalry could offset all other considerations. Reddy seems unwilling to forgive Naidu for ­implicating him in corruption cases, poaching his MLAs and MPs over the past five years and collaborating with the Congress. His actions suggest that he is hell-bent on teaching the former CM a lesson바카라�he has downgraded the latter바카라�s security cover and is busy issuing notices to the party offices of TDP across the state for building violations. The bitter stand-off between the two leaders could spark another Mahabharata in Andhra Pra­desh. And Amaravati would be the ­unwitting Kurukshetra.

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Amaravati

• Location Between Guntur and Vijayawada on the banks of the Krishna

• Area under capital region 8,603 sq km

• Area under capital city 217 sq km

• Land acquiredfrom 27,418 people under land pooling scheme

• Projected Populationby 2050 3.5 million

• Trunk road length 600 km

• Cycle track 3,200km

• Projected jobs over 25 years 1.5 million

• Projected GDP over 25 years Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 lakh crore

• Land allotted to 51 organisations

• MoUs signed worth Rs 1,54,350 crore

Source: APCRDA Handbook

By G.C. Shekhar in Amaravati