Why Amaravati As Capital City For Andhra Pradesh?
‘I love Singapore,’ said then Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu while requesting investors’ cooperation from Singapore to build a city in Amaravati when he was attending the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) 9th conference in 2014. He was suggesting to build a Singapore Model well-developed city in Amaravati as the state’s capital. Chandrababu Naidu has been dreaming of constructing a full-fledged city in Amaravati, which had been famously the capital city of the Satavahana dynasty during the BC first century.
The upcoming chief minister today officially announced that the state’s sole capital will be Amaravati. Andhra Pradesh, since Hyderabad ceased to be its capital city after the bifurcation of Telugu states in 2014, has been running without a specific capital. The state’s administrative buildings are spread across Visakhapatnam, Amaravati and Kurnool, with different cities as capitals for executive, legislative and judicial duties.
After the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, the state’s first chief minister Chandrababu Naidu proposed Amaravati as the capital city and began to work on the project. But the project was badly hit when his party lost power in 2019, and YSRCP’s YS Jagan Mohan Reddy became the new chief minister. Jagan Mohan Reddy scrapped the TDP leader’s Amaravati plan and instead implemented the aforementioned concept of three capitals.
After returning to power in 2024, Chandrababu Naidu on June 11, announced the establishment of a single capital, the TDP leader said that there will be no game of three capitals. Naidu is expected to be sworn in as chief minister tomorrow.
In his first 2014-19 term, Naidu proposed the Amaravati plan with an investment of over Rs 50,000 crore, with nine theme cities and 27 townships in the capital.
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The city has been chosen for its strategic importance and historic significance. The historic Satavahanas’s capital city, Amaravati is located close to developed cities such as Guntur and Vijayawada. Situated at the heart of the state alongside the Krishna river, the city can be availed adequate water resources to fills large requirements.
The historic name and glory that the place occupies is believed to add much more significance to the city. By constructing a capital, Amaravati can be integrated through an extensive network of ports, roads, airports, and inland waterways, turning the city into Andhra Pradesh’s well-connected economic hub.
Read also: Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP Returns With Huge Win In Andhra, Swearing In On June 9
Notably, as an agrarian terrain, massive land pooling had caused protests from farmers. Many were critical of the project, noting the diversion of the agricultural lands for a non-agricultural purpose, causing food security issues and loss of livelihoods for the farmers. The project has been running in a sluggish manner due to the change of priority in the outgoing government.
However, with TDP returning to power and Chandrababu Naidu becoming the chief minister, the project is expected to get a big boost.
