Hyderabad: Thanks to legal hurdles, the construction of AP’s new capital city may get delayed further.
It has been two years but construction of Amaravati still hasn’t started. The Centre has released Rs 1,050 crore for construction of government buildings such as the Raj Bhavan, High Court, Secretariat, Assembly etc. The state government has also acquired about 32,000 acre of land through land pooling, but till date constriction hasn’t started.
The state government wanted to develop a start-up area before starting on the capital city. For this it had called global tenders for the selection of Amaravati Development partner (ADP) through the Swiss Challenge mode. However, senior officials had objected to the Swiss Challenge approach and had warned the state government of legal problems. A senior official said, “The High Court’s decision is not a surprise to me; in fact I had told this to the government in the beginning.”
The state government wants to complete construction of first phase of Amaravati before the next general elections. But it is now not only facing financial hurdles but also legal problems.
A senior IAS officer said that though the present court case on Swiss Challenge was about developing the start-up and had nothing to do with construction of the capital city, it, however, would definitely have an impact on the construction of the capital.
While the Swiss Challenge issue is in the courts, Centre has asked for utilization certificates for the funds it had released. The state has sent utilization certificates for Rs 750 crore showing expenditures for construction of the temporary secretariat at Velagapudi but the Centre has made it clear expenses for the temporary secretariat should be borne by the state government.
