Andhra Pradesh to wait longer for funds from Centre to construct new capital city

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh will get funds from the Centre to construct the new capital city only around August. The Central government has asked the state to send a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for allotting the funds. But a senior AP government official said that unless they received the master plan from Singapore, they would not be able to prepare the DPR and send the same to the Centre.

Andhra Pradesh has asked the Singapore government to prepare the master plan for the capital city. Singapore minister Shanmugham, who visited Hyderabad three days ago, had said that they would submit the first phase of the master plan – for the core capital city – in June.

After examining the master plan, the Andhra Pradesh government will call for tenders to prepare the DPR for the capital city. Only after finalising the DPR will the state government send it to the Centre. The Central government will cross check the estimates with its own machinery before releasing the funds. To complete the process, it will take two months after receiving the master plan from the Singapore government.

The Centre government has agreed to sanction Rs 1,580 crore for the construction of the capital – Rs 1,000 crore for developing infrastructure facilities and Rs 580 crore for construction of buildings. But before it can release the funds, the state government has to send specific details of construction.

The Andhra Pradesh government had hoped that the Centre would make a provision for the funds in the Budget but that was not the case. Meanwhile, the state has successfully pooled around 32,000 acre from farmers for the capital city. It has planned to lay the foundation stone in May assuming that the Centre will release the funds