Jagan says the formula will help decentralise development in the state.
Hyderabad: Farmers who had given their lands for Amaravati city resorted to widespread protests over Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s proposal to have three capitals for Andhra Pradesh, just on the lines of South Africa. The Chief Minister suggested that Amaravati can be the legislative capital, while port city Visakhapatnam will be the executive capital and southern city Kurnool will be judicial capital with the High Court.
This method of having three capitals for Andhra Pradesh will help decentralise development in the state instead of focusing growth only at one place, Amaravati, contended Jagan. “Right from the beginning, my policy is to have decentralisation of development and governance and we may have three capitals in three regions just on the lines of South Africa,” Jagan told the Assembly on Tuesday.
His statement came three days before submission of report by an experts’ committee appointed by his government five months ago. The committee headed by retired bureaucrat G.N. Rao presented its report to the Chief Minister in Amaravati on Friday evening. The committee also endorsed the proposal of the Chief Minister. A final decision on it would be taken in a Cabinet meeting to be held on 27 December.
Though Jagan’s comments on the future of Amaravati are described as a suggestion by the ruling YSR Congress leaders and ministers, farmers in the capital city region have erupted in a massive stir by holding demonstrations and protests since Tuesday. They are of the view that Jagan must have made up his mind on scrapping Amaravati, an ambitious project taken by previous TDP government.
Right from the beginning, Jagan has opposed a massive metropolitan project called Amaravati which needed around Rs 1.10 lakh crore over a span of 25 to 30 years as envisaged by the Chanddrababu Naidu government in 2014. Jagan set up the G.N. Rao committee in June to study suitability of Amaravati as the capital of Andhra Pradesh as well as suggest steps to decentralise growth in the state.
The committee consisting of half-a-dozen members drawn from urban planning, architecture and development toured all 13 districts and collected around 40,000 petitions from the public. The panel, though its report still confidential, is understood to have favoured decentralisation of development across all the three regions—North-coastal, Coastal Andhra and southern parts of Rayala Seema.
Jagan is believed to have suggested three capitals—Visakhapatnam from north-coastal, Amaravati from coastal and Kurnool from Rayala Seema— keeping in view the regional balance. Besides, the G.N. Rao panel has made several suggestions to locate different government offices in different parts of the state, based on their suitability—for example, fisheries directorate in Kakinada, a fishing hub.
However, Jagan’s statement was strongly opposed by the opposition TDP while other parties like BJP, Jana Sena, Congress and the Left parties have joined hands with the protesting farmers on different grounds. TDP is in the forefront leading around 20,000 farmers who had offered their lands—around 33,000 acres—under a land pooling scheme (LPS) five years ago.
Under this LPS, the TDP government pooled lands from farmers by promising them a share in development of their properties, besides paying some annual lease for a specified period. Former Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu claimed that his LPS plan was unique and that Amaravati would be a first-of-its-kind self-financed city in India.
According to Naidu, Amaravati would generate around Rs 2 lakh crore GSDP (Gross State Domestic Produce) by 2025 when Andhra Pradesh would be on its own on all fronts. He estimated around Rs 1.10 lakh crore to build this city and most of it would be generated through sale of developed lands in a phased manner till 2035. This way, Naidu wanted to make up for loss of Hyderabad to Telangana due to bifurcation of AP.
This was rubbished by the Jagan government which maintained that Naidu’s calculations were based on “imaginary figures” and “utopian ideas”. Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy told the Assembly early this month that in the last five years, the TDP government had spent only Rs 5,500 crore and of that, about Rs 1,500 crore was given by the Centre.
The remaining amount was raised as loans from banks and financial institution and the government has been paying around Rs 700 crore per year as interest on the loans. “One can imagine what would be the interest burden, if we raise further huge loans from these banks. The former CM’s logic of raising funds through sale of lands in coming years is nothing but real estate business by government,” said the Finance Minister.
On the other hand, the Jagan government has come to a conclusion that the previous TDP regime had chosen Amaravati, a location between Vijayawada and Guntur cities on the banks of River Krishna, just because some of its leaders had purchased huge tracts of lands from farmers at cheaper rates. “We have evidence that there was insider trading by TDP top brass,” said Andhra Pradesh Municipal Minister Botsa Satyanarayana.
Besides, there is a demand from Rayala Seema, to which Jagan belongs, that the High Court should be set up in Kurnool, a major city in the region. Kurnool was the capital of Andhra state from 1952 to 1956 when it was merged with Hyderabad state to form Andhra Pradesh. Advocates from Kurnool demanded that the city be compensated in a suitable form by setting up the High Court.
The BJP, too, joined demands for setting up the High Court at Kurnool and Jagan’s promise to set up a judicial capital in the city would satisfy the party to some extent. The distance from Hyderabad to Amaravati is around 300 km, while the same between Hyderabad and Kurnool is 200 km. Most of the senior lawyers residing in Hyderabad would find it convenient to commute to Kurnool’s High Court.
As Visakhapatnam is already a developed major city, it won’t require much spending on creating infrastructure for secretariat and other buildings, Jagan said. “Hardly a few hundreds of acres of lands are enough to go for regular administration from Vizag, while we need to spend huge amounts at Amaravati,” he said. The Andhra Pradesh Cabinet will take a final decision on Amaravati on 27 December.