Amaravati: Capital on revival road after years of turbulence

“We suffered a lot during those five years, fighting legal battles with the government in the high court and Supreme Court. The value of the commercial plots and residential plots allotted by the previous TDP government under the land pooling system went down drastically. We had given up hope,” he said.

Then, things changed again. Naidu ‘s TDP won the high-stakes state polls last year and returned to power. Better still, it partnered the Bharatiya Janata Party, performed well in the Lok Sabha elections, and became part of the coalition NDA government in Delhi. With Naidu’s return, the Amaravati project returned to the spotlight. “We see men and machinery everywhere . We are now confident,” said Babu, who is among the farmers invited to the Friday relaunch of the Amaravati project by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Velagapudi .

After years of uncertainty, legal battles, and political turmoil, Amaravati is set to rise again. The dream project of chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, the 34,389 acre city is finally ready to shake off the tags of “ghost city” and “graveyard”, using the backing of the state and central government to target a deadline of three years for completion.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Amaravati and formally relaunching the capital’s construction, the city is welcoming back thousands of people, workers, officials and investors from across the world. Over the next three years, the state, the Centre, and private investors will plough in an estimated ₹64,912 crore of investment (in the first phase) to set up a modern Capital.

“Three years down the line, you will see a remarkable change. Amaravati will turn into a dream capital city and nobody can ever raise the question – what is the capital of Andhra Pradesh – again,” said Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority additional commissioner Naveen Mallarapu.

Changing fateLocated between the cities of Vijayawada and Guntur, Amaravati was chosen as the state capital in 2014 by the Naidu government during its previous stint. According to a report of the AP Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA), Amaravati was chosen as the capital due to its accessibility by road and rail, and because of its proximity to ports and airports. “The planned city spans 217 sq km within an overall capital region of approximately 8,352.69 sq km ,” the report said, adding that by 2050, Amaravati aimed to generate 1.5 million jobs, have a population of 3.5 million, and a GDP of $35 billion.

Naidu left no stone unturned to make his pet project a reality. He oversaw the construction of an interim secretariat complex, interim state legislature and a high court complex in the capital region. He entrusted the Singapore government with preparing the Master Plan for the capital city, a task which was completed in a year. Between 2014 and 2019, the Naidu government completed a six-lane access road and constructed major arterial roads, accommodation for state ministers, MLAs, high court judges, All India Service Officers, state government employees and economically weaker sections.

But when YS Jagan Mohan Reddy swept to power in 2019, all work stalled.He abandoned the project, cancelled the loan agreement with the World Bank and scrapped the MoU with a Singapore consortium. A few months later, Jagan announced that his government preferred to have three capitals for the state – an executive capital at Visakhapatnam, a legislative capital at Amaravati and a judicial capital at Kurnool— citing the need to decentralise the administration.

On May 31, 2019, work on 73 bungalows (38 for judges, 35 for ministers) was stopped along with that of 288 homes for lawmakers and bureaucrats. Jagan alleged that the project was marred by corrupt land dealings.

However, as electoral fortunes in the state changed again, so did Amaravati’s fate. Soon after winning the elections last year, Naidu revived the efforts to make Amaravati the capital. He called experts from IIT Hyderabad and Madras to inspect the structural strength of the abandoned buildings, got the unwarranted vegetation that had cone up in the entire capital city removed and submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court seeking to declare Amaravati as the state’s capital city.

Road to resurgence

This week, there are no signs of the sordid past. Heavy machinery, including hundreds of earth movers, is at work clearing the thick overgrowth that has taken over residential and commercial plots.

Multi-storeyed government and residential buildings — left abandoned midway — are now being cleared of weeds and debris, giving the area a fresh lease of life. Around the half-constructed villas intended for ministers and judges — structures that had become shelters for stray dogs — labourers are back in action, driven by a renewed sense of purpose and urgency.

Nowhere is this more visible than the 23-km-long, eight-lane main highway into the new capital, once cloaked in darkness. New transformers are being installed, and LED lights now line it, casting a new glow on Amaravati’s long-delayed promise of becoming a world-class capital.

Work will soon restart at the massive high court complex, proposed to be constructed with a built-up area of 1.65 million sq ft with a buddhist Stupa architecture.

A senior APCRDA official said on the condition of anonymity that the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, which together approved a total $1600 million ( ₹13,600 crore) loan in March for the Amaravati capital city development project, disbursed the first tranche of $205 million through the Centre in the first week of April.

“The Centre will contribute another ₹1,400 crore, taking the overall financial assistance to the capital city project to ₹15,000 crore, as was committed in the last year’s Union budget,” he said, adding that this amount would be used as mobilisation advance for kick-starting work.

P Narayana, the state’s urban development minister said that in the first phase of the capital construction, all the 92 projects abandoned during the previous government, would be completed at a cost of ₹64,912 crore.

“We have already finalised tenders for 68 projects worth ₹42,360 crore,” he asserted. Last fortnight, tenders were called for the construction of five state secretariat towers at a total cost of over ₹4,500 crore.

Narayana said 3,000 workers and 500 machines have been deployed in the city and about 15,000 workers will reach the work site in the next two to three weeks. “We shall complete all the abandoned constructions in a span of three years, including new structures like iconic buildings of assembly, secretariat and high court,” he said.

Narayana assured that the 360-km long trunk road network will be completed within a year-and-a -a-half. “Similarly, we shall complete all the infrastructure facilities including drinking water supply, sanitation, stormwater relief, recycled water, roads, power etc in two years.”

Construction in full swing

Contractors, who were forced to abandon the works during the previous regime, are now back in full swing. “We had to leave the work midway in 2019, after completing 70% . Now that the capital city has been revived, we are back to work,” said MAN Patrudu, assistant general manager of NCC Projects Ltd, which is building residential quarters for lawmakers and bureaucrats.

Their focus will be on the Amaravati Government Complex (AGC), which will comprise the assembly building, the high court and the administrative building complex, including the state secretariat. In all, five towers will be built with a total area of 6.888 million square feet at a cost of ₹4,688 crore. The 47-floor General Administration Department (GAD) tower will be its highlight.

According to N Sateesh Babu, director (strategy) of APCRDA, the state government plans to promote Amaravati as a fully-renewable source powered-city. “We are ensuring that all the buildings have solar panels on roof-tops. We also want to make it mandatory to obtain sustainable certification to adopt green energy systems,” he said.

Babu said the government is also contemplating introducing district cooling systems that provide chilled water to multiple buildings from a central plant through a network of underground pipes. “We shall also encourage EV automobiles,” he said.

Among issues to be resolved includes that of foreign agencies. In 2018, APCRDA signed a concession and development agreement and a shareholding agreement with a Singapore consortium comprising Ascendas Singbridge Pte Ltd and Sembcorp Development Ltd. The Jagan Mohan Reddy government cancelled the agreement in 2019. Now, the state government is in negotiations with the Singapore Consortium again.

Other problems also linger. Many villages in Amaravati get water-logged whenever there are heavy rains. In July 2024, torrential rainfall in Krishna river’s upper catchment areas submerged large areas in 25 of the 29 villages in the Amaravati capital area. However, Narayana said the government will adopt effective flood management methods to avoid water-logging in the capital area. The Opposition has mounted an attack on the state government, accusing it of carrying out large-scale corruption by fraudulently increasing the project cost. “Thousands of crores have been siphoned off even before works begin,” former state minister and YSRCP regional coordinator Karumuri Venkata Nageswara Rao claimed.

Making of a capital

But the government is unfazed, and pushing to realise its Amaravati dream.

Minister Narayana said last week that Naidu has a long-term plan of eventually merging Amaravati with Vijayawada on the northern side and Guntur on the southern side, to make it a mega city.

The state government already proposed a railway link passing through Amaravati and an outer ring road, both approved by the Centre. “Now, Naidu has come with the idea of establishing an international airport in Amaravati for which about 5,000 acres of land is required. This can be done only through land pooling again, for which we may need at least 30,000 acres of land,” he said.

Some farmers are thrilled. Jammala Madhu, a farmer in Thullur village of Amaravati, said there was a demand from neighbouring villages such as Peda Parimi, Vaddemanu and Harishchandrapuram, to be merged with the Amaravati project.

“They are willing to give away their land, because land values have been shooting up ever since the Amaravati project was revived. The value of commercial and residential plots would be more than the agricultural land,” Madhu said.

Under land pooling owners get a portion of the developed land. This is typically of higher value -- given the infrastructure developed in the region.

SK Kalyan, who runs a small garments business in Thullur, said if the government wanted to acquire more land, the farmers were willing. “Real estate is now more lucrative than agriculture.”