From Amaravati to decentralised growth

Amaravati: It took no time for the locals to realise that the much-talked about global capital city Amaravati would eventually fade into history after YS Jagan came to power last May. A year with Jagan at the helm, Amaravati remains on paper with many half-completed structures and barren lands. The dream capital for thousands of local farmers, who parted their lands without taking compensation, is slowly becoming a ghost city.

The previous TDP government had pooled nearly 33,000 acres from local farmers and taken over another 20,000 acres of government land to ready a grand capital city for the state. Planned over 50,000 acres, the proposed capital city did brisk business with realtors and business tycoons.

Two private universities had started operations while a dozen skyscrapers were ready for occupation. However, the TDP government spent a lot of time in finalisation of designs and plans as it wanted to make Amaravati, bigger than the biggest capital cities in the world. It eventually delayed the grounding of major works.

Taking full advantage from the slow pace of progress, the YSRC government decided to decentralise development across all three regions of the state. It stopped all ongoing projects and decided not to make any fresh investment in Amaravati.

Enraged with the development, the farmers started protests across the 29 villages of the capital city and filed several petitions in the high court. Despite facing several reversals in the court, the YSRC government remains firm on scrapping the Amaravati project.

“We do not have the luxury to spend Rs one lakh crore on one city (Amaravati) by ignoring the cries of people of Rayalaseema and north-coastal regions for drinking and irrigation water,” finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy said, defending the move. He, however, promised to do justice to the local farmers, who had given their land for the construction of the capital city.

However, YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s decision to develop Mangalagiri and Tadepalle as model towns is likely to spur development along the highway that connects Guntur and Vijayawada cities.