Amaravati springs back to life ahead of PM’s visit

After years of uncertainty, legal battles and political turmoil, Amaravati — the capital city of Andhra Pradesh – has finally begun taking a concrete shape. Once dismissed as a “ghost city” and “graveyard” by critics, the capital city spread across 34,389 acres is now buzzing with hectic activity, gearing up for a major relaunch.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Amaravati on May 2 to formally relaunch the capital’s construction, which was stalled for five years between 2019 and 2024 when YS Jagan Reddy of YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) was the chief minister. On May 31, 2019, work on 73 bungalows (38 for judges, 35 for ministers) was stopped along with that of 288 homes for MLAs and MLCs and bureaucrats.

In anticipation of this high-profile visit, the city has transformed into a hub of frantic activity. Heavy machinery, including hundreds of earth movers, is at work clearing the thick overgrowth that has taken over residential and commercial plots during the hiatus.

“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,” asserted Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority additional commissioner Naveen Mallarapu.

The 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 half-constructed villas intended for ministers and judges — structures that had become shelters for stray dogs — labourers are now back in action, driven by a renewed sense of purpose and urgency.

The 23-kilometre, eight-lane Seed Access Road, once covered in darkness, now has new transformers and LED lights.

Work will soon restart at the massive high court complex, proposed to be constructed with a built-up area of 16.5 lakh sq ft with Buddhist Stupa architecture, which virtually submerged in a large pool of water. So, is the fate of five-towered integrated secretariat and official complexes.

Another senior APCRDA official, on condition of anonymity, said that the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, which together approved a total $1600 million ( ₹13,600 crore) 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 kickstarting the capital works.

State municipal administration and urban development minister Ponguru Narayana said in the first phase of the capital construction, all the 92 works, which were abandoned during the previous government, would be completed at a cost of ₹64,912 crore.

“We have already finalised tenders for 68 works worth ₹42,360 crore and several works have already been grounded,” he asserted. Last week, 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 already been deployed in the capital city to take up the work and about 15,000 workers would reach the work sites 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.

He assured that the 360-km long trunk road network will be completed within a year and a half. “Similarly, we shall complete all the infrastructure facilities drinking water supply, sanitation, stormwater relief, recycled water for beneficial applications, roads, power etc in the returnable plots allotted to farmers who had given away their lands for the capital, in two years,” he said.

The contractors, who were forced to abandon the works during the previous regime, are now back in full swing. “We had to leave the works midway in 2019, after completing 70% of the work. Now that the capital city has been revived, we are back to work. Despite constraints, we shall make every effort to stick to the deadline in the completion of works,” said M A N Patrudu, assistant general manager of NCC Projects Ltd, which has taken up construction of residential quarters for MLAs, MLCs and All India Service officers.

V Nagendra Babu, site engineer belonging to BSR Constructions which was awarded a contract for the ministers’ quarters and judges’ quarters, is also euphoric on the resumption of activity in the capital city. “In the next three days, there will be hectic activity with hundreds of labourers. We are confident of completing all the villas within a year,” he said.

Future of Amaravati

The new Andhra capital will have the Amaravati Government Complex (AGC), which comprises the assembly building, high court and the administrative building complex, including the state secretariat and could be world’s first fully renewable powered state capital.

According to N Sateesh Babu, director (strategy) of APCRDA, the state government is planning to promote Amaravati as the fully-renewable powered-city in the coming years. “We are ensuring that all the buildings that would come up in the capital city would have solar panels on the 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 introduction of district cooling system (that provides chilled water to multiple buildings from a central plant through a network of underground pipes) in Amaravati to reduce the carbon footprints. “We shall also encourage EV automobiles in the state capital,” he said.

On April 16 this year, the APCRDA called for tenders for the construction of the Integrated AP State Secretariat and Heads of Department offices (GAD Tower) in Amaravati. In all, there will be five towers with a total area of 68.88 lakh square feet to be built at a total cost of ₹4,688 crore. The tallest among these towers is the General Administration Department (GAD) tower which will be 47 floors high, according to the officials.

The Andhra Pradesh government is in negotiations with the Singapore Consortium, which was originally assigned to take up the construction of seed capital area in Amaravati during the earlier regime of Naidu government in 2018. In August last year, the Andhra Pradesh government’s Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) initiated preliminary talks with the Singapore government about developing the seed capital area in Amaravati. “The final decision has not yet been taken,” an official of the municipal administration department said.

In 2018, the APCRDA under the TDP government signed a concession and development agreement and a shareholding agreement with a Singapore consortium comprising Ascendas Singbridge Pte Ltd and Sembcorp Development Ltd, to develop the seed capital area in Amaravati, in the name of Amaravati Start-up Area Development Project. Jagan Mohan Reddy government had got the agreement cancelled in 2019.

Various other consulting teams that are working on Amaravati project are: Singapore-based Surbana Jurong in joint venture with Knight Frank for project management; UK-based Fosters + Partners Ltd for design consultancy for the legislative assembly and high court buildings; Auctus Advisers for business tourism consultancy; Tractebel Engineering for designing district cooling systems; Feedback Ventures for project management; Eptisa for civil engineering consultancy; and Aarvee Associates for infrastructure consultancy.

Expansive City

While kickstarting the construction of the capital city works, the state government is contemplating transforming Amaravati into a much bigger metropolitan city than what has originally been planned.

Municipal administration minister Narayana told reporters last week that chief minister N Chandrababu 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, which were 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 was required. This could be done only through land pooling method again, for which we may need at least 30,000 acres of land, since we need to provide returnable plots – commercial and residential plots to the farmers who give their land,” he said.

According to Jammala Madhu, a farmer in Thullur village of Amaravati, said with the resumption of capital city works, there is a demand from the surrounding villages like Peda Parimi, Vaddemanu and Harishchandrapuram, that the government should merge their villages into Amaravati.

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

Echoing the similar sentiment, SK Kalyan, who runs a small garments business in Thullur said if the government wants to acquire more land for the capital, the farmers were willing to give. “Real estate business is more fetching than agriculture,” he said.

The minister, however, said no decision has been taken yet on more land acquisition and the proposal was still in the initial stages of discussion.