Amaravati as Capital: Special Assembly Session Today
A special one-day session of the state assembly has been convened on March 28.
Vijayawada:In a decisive political and administrative move, the Andhra Pradesh government is poised to grant Amaravati full legal status as the state capital, signalling an end to years of uncertainty over the issue.
A special one-day session of the state assembly has been convened on March 28. The government will introduce and adopt a resolution formally declaring Amaravati as the sole capital of AP.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is keen on ensuring policy clarity and long-term administrative stability vis-à-vis the capital status for Amaravati.
The Cabinet meanwhile approved a special resolution to amend Section-5 of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. The proposed amendment seeks to explicitly include "at Amaravati" in the act, and defining the capital city as the area notified under the AP CRDA Act, 2014, thereby providing clear legal legitimacy to the capital region.
This fully nullifies the three-capital proposal introduced by the previous government. Under that model, Amaravati was to be the legislative capital, Visakhapatnam the executive capital, and Kurnool the judicial capital.
The capital question has remained at the centre of AP’s political discourse since the bifurcation of the state following the state bifurcation under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, which led to the creation of a separate state, Telangana. In its aftermath, Amaravati was identified as the new capital by Chandrababu Naidu during his previous tenure.
The issue took a different turn between 2019 and 2024 under the YSRC rule, when then CM, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, proposed decentralisation through the three-capital model.
With the Telugu Desam returning to power in 2024 in alliance with the Jana Sena and the BJP, Amaravati has once again emerged as the cornerstone of the state’s development vision.
Amaravati’s selection has been justified on multiple grounds, including its central location, connectivity, and its potential to be developed as a modern, sustainable urban hub. As a greenfield project, it offers the state a rare opportunity to build world-class infrastructure from the ground up, rather than retrofitting the existing urban centres.
Naidu made it clear that his priority is to later secure the passage of a bill in Parliament granting legal sanctity to Amaravati as AP’s sole capital. He said the bill is expected to come up in this Parliament session, bringing closure to nearly a decade of uncertainty and flux over the capital’s status.
