 "Naidu plans for a Singapore in AP")
The site of the grand event is at Uddandarayunipalem, a small village about 10 km away from this city, on the other side of the Krishna river. After months of planning, the government has deployed heavy resources to create a makeshift infrastructure and support facilities for this massive congregation of people, expected to see the participation of 4,000 very very important persons (VVIPs) from within and outside the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on top of this list.
"When we first came to oversee the marking work for the layout of stage and the seating area, Municipal and Urban Development Minister P Narayana had struggled to make his way through the fields. Today, there is a plain and levelled ground across hundreds of acres and this massive pandal is being erected for the event, all in less than 10 days," said a local government official, expressing a sense of disbelief as to how quickly the rich green banana gardens and rows of tall palm trees gave way to an event even before the beginning of the actual construction.
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"Now, we are fully convinced that no matter who comes to power in the next elections, the location of the new state capital is going to remain the same," Jammula Sambasiva Rao of nearby Thullur village told Business Standard. Like several farmers of his village, Rao gave 20 acres of his family land for construction of the capital city, under a land pool scheme introduced by the Naidu government earlier this year.
Massive preparations
On a day of visit to the site, not far from the Krishna's banks, upstream of Prakasam Barrage, hundreds from Bengaluru and Hyderabad were busy on a massive pandal for the seating area, while tonnes of steel frame and other equipment for this purpose was being brought in dozens of trucks, some from as afar as Delhi.
"The seating area is 1,800 ft long and 600 ft wide. It is designed to provide seating for 150,000," Guntur Joint Collector C Sridhar told Business Standard at the site on Wednesday.
A centre stage for only about 15 people, including the prime minister, two large stages on either side of it with capacity to accommodate as many as 700 VVIPs, and a fourth stage that comes up between the audience and the main stage for holding the cultural programmes were being set up at the front-end. "The site has turned into a tourist spot, with people from different places coming in large numbers to take a look," said government advisor Parakala Prabhakar.
Around half a dozen helipads have been built to airlift the VVIPs from Gannavaram airport and back. Kilometres of roads in multiple directions around Uddandarayunipalem are being widened and strengthened for smooth flow of traffic to the venue on that day.
The chief minister has invited representatives from the top 500 industrial houses. Apart from governors, chief ministers, central ministers and judges of the Supreme Court and high courts, among other important people, according to officials. Also invited are a large number of non-resident Indians as special guests. Business delegations from countries such as Singapore and Japan and ambassadors of various countries were also expected to participate. Ministers from Singapore and Japan are expected; Naidu had even invited the prime ministers of both countries, though they're unlikely to come
All those farmers who gave their land for the capital construction are to get special treatment during the event. The administration has extended a traditional invitation to the families of these 24,000 farmers. "They will be seated in the front rows and will also be presented with clothes, as we do it to our elders in our family," said Sridhar.
Some farmers are still unwilling to part with their land, though a large portion of the 34,000 acres proposed to come under the pooling scheme was now in government control, according to local sources.
Vision
After having formally decided to set up the new capital near Vijayawada late last year, the state government had declared it was going to build a Singapore-like city, to serve not only as a political and administrative centre but also as a hub of wealth creation. The master plan proposes the financial sector as the highest provider of jobs in the new city, followed by information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services, and then industry, in that order.
While the Centre had given Rs 500 crore as maiden assistance for construction of facilities in the proposed capital city area last year, the state government has drawn up plans for the development on a public-private participation (PPP) mode. The government intends to use land as a resource to attract massive private investment for the development of commercial, residential and social infrastructure, at a scale matched by cities like Singapore. To handle the public-private partnership process, the government proposes to select a master developer.
"The formation of a new capital city, critical for its administration, economic development, and cultural integration, is an immediate priority for the successor state of Andhra Pradesh," had said Naidu on September 4, 2014, while formally announcing the location and contours of the new capital in the state legislative assembly.
In a Cabinet resolution adopted on September 1, 2014, the government said it had resolved to locate the capital in a central place of the new state, around Vijayawada, and to go for decentralised development of the state, with three mega cities and 14 'smart cities'. Naidu termed his decision a reflection of the popular sentiment.
In contrast, the experts committee constituted by the Centre in March 2014 had suggested the distribution of capital functions across different existing cities in the state, for balanced regional development, instead of going for a new city.
Envisaged
The master plan speaks of development of the capital city in a 217 sq km area over the next 35 years. Of this, the core of the city or the seed capital is proposed in 4,100 acres. This is where the government infrastructure, high-rises, IT towers and a central business district will be located.
Of this, the state government planned to complete the development in 375 acres -- 250 acres covering government buildings and the remaining 175 acres of commercial development, including some iconic high-rises, by 2018-19.
"We have shortlisted three architects for preparing designs for government buildings that would come up in 250 acres. We would finalise the architect by conducting a competition among these three firms very soon," Ajai Jain, secretary, Capital Region Development Authority, told Business Standard.
The government would finalise a master developer for the capital city by the end of December. Then, private companies will be invited to take part in commercial development of plots meant for different purposes, through a transparent procedure, said Jain. Construction of government buildings are likely to require about Rs 1,500 crore and the government has been looking at various funding options for the infrastructure. "You will see a lot of activity on ground from June-July next year," said Jain.
AMARAVATI, NEW CAPITAL CITY OF ANDHRA PRADESH
- Amaravati, or abode of the deathless, being built on either side of the river Krishna, would be spread across 212 sq km between Vijayawada and Guntur
- New capital being constructed under the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) Act, 2014
- State govt proposed voluntary pooling to acquire land.It offered 1,200/1,500 sq yards of developed plot for every acre dry/wet land, and Rs 30,000 per acre of dry and Rs 50,000 per acre of wet land; in addition Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 every year for 10 years
- Consultants from Singapore consultants - its ministry of trade and industry, Centre for Liveable Cities, the international enterprise - prepared the master plans
- Amaravati's core, or seed capital, will cover 1,600 hectares
- Total area of the capital region is 22,000 hectares, of which 13,000 ha from land pooling of farmland across 33 villages spread across 217 sq km and the rest is forest land
- Connected via rail network through Vijayawada, NH 5 and NH 9
- Capital city to be developed in three phases until 2050
- 8,000 hectares each of residential and commercial/industrial areas, 1,230 hectares of civic facilities, nearly 10,000 ha of parks and open spaces
- 351,620 jobs in the first phase that will cover about 15,000 ha and take 10 years to complete; 379,534 jobs in phase II about 20 years and 1 million jobs in phase 3 over 35 years
- Planners expect government sector to generate 1.1% of the jobs, corporate sector 10.2%, IT and ITeS 14.9%, financial sector 17%, Industrial 7.8%, start ups 0.2%, Education 2.5% and Indirect jobs 46.2 per cent
- Vastu compliant: city to have northeastern axis as winds from that direction bring in positive flow of energy
- To have residential facilities for 300,000 people, two mass rapid transit corridors with metro rail connectivity
- Seed capital will house the assembly, secretariat and the high court along with ministries
- Amaravati downtown will have towers similar to Kuala Lumpur's Petronas and Burj Khalifa of Dubai
- Amaravati Gateway will be the commercial hub