Hyderabad: If Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has taught the people of the state anything since coming to power this year, it is how to dream big. Making those dreams a reality is perhaps a masterclass Mr Naidu will schedule for the coming years, at least we hope so.
The biggest dream that the people of AP were to believe in, was that a world-class capital city that would soon be coming up.
Mr Naidu has taken reference points from cities near and far. From Naya Raipur and Gandhinagar in the country to Singapore, Tokyo, Putrajaya, Chicago and New York, the CM wanted the best of the lot.
To breathe life into his riverfront capital in the Vijayawada-Guntur area, Mr Naidu chose the Singapore government to partner in the initiative and make the master plan, and the Japanese government to help build it.
The Chief Minister agreed that the Singapore government would be ideal given its experience of constructing the world-class city-nation. “In addition to Singapore and Japan, we will also explore the best available services of various countries to be taken to build a world class capital city. Preparation of the master plan is only the beginning,” he said.
Like most ambitious projects in our country, AP’s capital city project, too, has seen its share of controversies even before a single brick has been laid.
A retired town planner said, “The very selection of the location for the capital city the Vijayawada-Guntur stretch is mired in allegations. First of all, the Sivaramakrishnan Committee had opposed setting up of the capital on the Vijayawada-Guntur stretch at the cost of fertile lands. But like the Srikrishna Committee report on the bifurcation of the state, even this one was brushed aside and Mr Naidu’s government chose its own location.”
Since we are a country of sycophants, the name of the capital city is paramount. While many Telugu Desam leaders have proposed to name the city after NTR, it has drawn a lot of flak. Even a few ruling party MLAs have spoken out against it.
TD MLA G. Butchaiah Chowdhary said, “I have immense respect, love and regard for N.T. Rama Rao. But his name for the capital city would ruin its image and it will sound like a slum.”
Meanwhile, amidst all this clamour, the TD government passed the Capital Region Development Authority Bill in the state Assembly taking the Opposition YSRC by surprise as the Bill did not even have details about the controversial land-pooling.
If one wasn’t enough, demands also came from certain quarters about more than one capital city. President of Andhra Pradesh Intellectuals Forum, Chalasani Srinivas, said development of AP should not be centred only in the Vijayawada-Guntur region as had been the case with Hyderabad. “There should be three to four capital cities in AP and the proposed one, between Vijayawada and Guntur, can be confined for administrative purposes,” he added.
Municipal minister Dr P. Narayana said, “Mr Naidu wants a world-class capital city for AP with ultra-modern facilities. He wants the world’s best models to be adapted and moulded appropriately to suit the local conditions in AP.”
