Capital conundrum in A.P. Premium
The Hindu
The decision in 2019 to divide the legislative, executive, and judicial duties among three regions in Andhra Pradesh, over the previous resolution to make Amaravati the State capital, has taken its toll on small and marginal farmers, who are fighting in the Supreme Court for this to be reversed, finds V. Raghavendra
A. Venkata Rama Rao, a farmer from Krishnayapalem village in Mangalagiri Mandal of Guntur district, feels like a pawn in a game played in the corridors of power. In 2015, Rama Rao surrendered to the Andhra Pradesh State government about 6 acres of fertile land on the banks of the Krishna river for the development of Amaravati, slated to be the State capital.
After the bifurcation of AP and Telangana (TS), he, like thousands of farmers across 29 villages, gladly gave up his land for the promise of ‘developed’ land in the future, annuity for a decade, and a vision of a new Capital that would contribute to Telugu pride.
“That was the time when our State was going through a turbulent period due to bifurcation (in 2014). Chandrababu Naidu (then the Chief Minister) was looking for a place to get the capital city built, after having had to move out of Hyderabad (the capital would be shared for the next 10 years),” he says, of the emotion he felt at the perceived injustice. “He asked us to give our lands for the capital, and we had no second thoughts. It was for a cause, and I had little thought about my family’s future,” he said.
Instead of an outright lump sum monetary compensation, the State government introduced a system of land pooling, where the currency was land itself. The agricultural area would be taken, and landowners would be given “a smaller (25%) but developed plot of land. These reconstituted plots would come with infrastructure such as citywide WiFi access, paved roads, sewage pipes and electricity lines,” says a document on the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (AP-CRDA) website. The AP-CRDA — Amaravati’s urban planning agency — was formed in 2014. In all, more than 25,000 farmers gave 33,000 acres for the construction of the capital.
At the time, Mr. Naidu (of the Telugu Desam Party) was supported by the current Chief Minister, Jagan Mohan Reddy of the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), in the choice of Capital.
But five years later, in 2019, when the State government changed and Mr. Reddy’s party came to power, they passed a legislation to have separate Capital cities for executive, legislative, and judicial functions.
In this scheme of decentralisation, Amaravati would only have a legislative complex, while Visakhapatnam and Kurnool would be the executive and judicial capitals, respectively. The idea was to have the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), secretariat, and offices of heads of departments in the port city and the High Court in Kurnool. The thought was that this way, the three regions—Uttarandhra (north coastal districts), Rayalaseema and the remaining coastal districts)—would see development.
The Opposition Congress demanded that the government open the Gandhi Vatika Museum, depicting Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy and freedom struggle, built at a cost of ₹85 crore in Jaipur’s Central Park last year, during the Congress-led regime in Rajasthan. The museum has not been opened to the public, reportedly because of the administration’s engagements with the State Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
Almaya Munnettam (Lay People to the Fore), group in the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese of the Syro-Malabar Church opposed to the synod-recommended Mass, rejected a circular issued by Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil and apostolic administrator Bosco Puthur on June 9 to implement the unified Mass in the archdiocese from July 3.