A decision on this is expected after he gets the Centre’s nod.
Hyderabad: Amaravati will continue to be the capital city of Andhra Pradesh, but its scale and size is likely to be reduced by the Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSR Congress government. A decision to this effect is expected to be announced soon, once the Chief Minister gets a nod from the Central government.
The controversy surrounding the fate of Amaravati has already snowballed into a major political issue after Andhra Pradesh municipal administration minister Botsa Satyanarayana’s statement last week, where he said that the newly developed city was unfit to be the capital of a state in view of its faulty geographical location of being a flood-prone area on the banks of river Krishna.
Chief Minister Jagan, who returned from a tour of the United States last Saturday, was supposed to clarify the position of Amaravati in the wake of protests that broke out over the minister’s statement. However, the Chief Minister remained tightlipped through the week, adding fuel to the protests from farmers who had contributed around 33,000 acres of their fertile lands for Amaravati.
Jagan, who called on Union Home Minister Amit Shah on 26 August over a conference of Maoist-affected states’ chief ministers, is believed to have conveyed his intention to shift, if possible, the capital of Andhra Pradesh from Amaravati, as the “entire project reeked of corruption and irregularities”. However, the CM couldn’t get any assurance from Shah, sources in the government said.
If shifting of the capital is not possible, then Jagan intends to scale down Amaravati, both in size and stature, trimming it to a bare minimum administrative zone and decentralise various offices to all regions in Andhra like Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Tirupati, Kurnool and Kadapa etc, according to indications from the Chief Minister’s camp. A clear picture on this will come only after the Centre makes its stand clear.
Minister Satyanarayana, who initially objected to Amaravati being built on a flood-prone zone, later sharpened his attack on the previous Chandrababu Naidu government “for resorting to inside trading” at the time of deciding Amaravati as the capital of Andhra Pradesh five years ago. The minister alleged that several TDP leaders close to Naidu had purchased vast tracts of lands at cheap prices in and around the capital city region. The minister has so far revealed the name of Rajya Sabha member Y.S. (Sujana) Chowdary and a TDP leader Bharat, close relative of Nara Lokesh, son of former Chief Minister Naidu.
Of course, both Chowdary and Bharat have denied the charges and made it clear that they owned the lands outside the purview of Amaravati city limits and purchased those years before the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. Chowdary, now a BJP MP, also dared the minister to take action against him “if there was really any inside trading”. The Jagan government, besides facing attacks from the Opposition TDP, also had to face the ire of farmers who started daily protests and demonstrations on shifting of the capital from Amaravati. To douse their anger, the government last Thursday issued orders for payment of their royalties—on their lands pooled for the capital city—to a tune of around Rs 187.40 crore.
As per an agreement signed at the time of land pooling, the government had to pay an amount of Rs 30,000 per acre per year on dry lands and at the same rate Rs 50,000 for wet lands, besides allotting some sq yards—250 to 350—land for commercial and residential purposes. There was no payment of this royalty after the YSR Congress came to power in May this year.
The release of royalty by the Jagan government is seen as a gesture of the Chief Minister towards the farmers that the capital city won’t be changed, but there will be some changes with the overall capital plans. However, there is no clarification from the CMO or the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) on this issue.