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Amaravati, a new city on India’s eastern flank
Highlights
Amaravati is only the fifth planned city India will have. It will be the first capital built on a waterfront, on the southern bank of river Krishna, harking back to ancient civilisations the river valleys have helped create.
Amaravati is only the fifth planned city India will have. It will be the first capital built on a waterfront, on the southern bank of river Krishna, harking back to ancient civilisations the river valleys have helped create. Located on a network of highways, it will need an international airport. It must modernise its string of 14 ports to augment the seafaring capacity of Visakhapatnam. The sum result would be a stupendous brand new city spread over 7,235 sq km, 10 times the size of Singapore’s own 716 sq km. It is planned to be 25 per cent larger than present day Chennai, to house 11 million people over 20 years. Designed to be the biggest multi-purpose hub on India’s east coast, it will have exclusive zones for commerce, trade, industry, knowledge, medicine, governance, greenery and tourism
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Ruling from Amaravati in India’s southern peninsula between 2nd century BCE and 3rd century CE, the Satavahana kings colonised parts of Southeast Asia, promoting trade, introducing Hinduism and Buddhism and the famed Amaravati School of Art. Eighteen centuries later, by locating its new capital near the ancient Amaravati, the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh wants to be India’s eastern gateway to East and Southeast Asia.
A return journey of a kind has begun. The city’s design, planning, execution and part of the funds come from Japan and Singapore. Their trade ministers, Yosuke Takagi and S. Iswaran, attended with teams of stakeholders when Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the capital city’s foundation on October 22.
Familiar since the year 2001 with what the Malaysians can do with infrastructure and town planning, the State’s Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu, conferred with Iskandar Regional Development Authority in September. There is a lot in the pipeline, including offices and houses requiring a tie-up with the Andhra Pradesh Housing Board, in this one trillion rupees project…
Investors seem interested. Chinese firms have signed pacts to invest between $2 billion and $3 billion. Japan’s telecom and Internet giant SoftBank Corp is ready to collaborate with the Andhra Pradesh government in the renewable energy sector.
Ideally, the creation of a new political and administrative entity requires a new capital city. Ranchi is unsuitable for Jharkhand state, while Dehradun in the Himalayan foothills, the once sleepy town of holidaymakers and retirees, has lost lustre after it became the capital of
Uttarakhand.
Designed by Frenchman Le Corbusier, Chandigarh is shared by the Punjab and Haryana States because it is at the edge of both. This is not possible for Andhra Pradesh as the four centuries old Hyderabad is deep within Telengana that formally split in June last year.
It has been hard for Andhra Pradesh to lose its current capital. Singapore was quick to sign an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government last December to prepare the master plan and develop the new city. The two have moved rather fast. Amaravati is only the fifth planned city India will have. It will be the first built on a waterfront, on the southern bank of river Krishna, harking back to ancient civilisations the river valleys have helped create.
Located on a network of highways, it will need an international airport. It must modernise its string of 14 ports to augment the seafaring capacity of Vishakhapatnam port.
The sum result would be a stupendous brand new city spread over 7,235 sq km, 10 times the size of Singapore’s own 716 sq km. It is planned to be 25 per cent larger than present day Chennai, to house 11 million people over 20 years.
On the face of it, Amaravati seems much bigger than Naya Raipur, another planned capital city for Chhattisgarh state. The two are shaping up as India plans a hundred “smart” cities. These cities could provide an exciting template for building new ones across India that is getting fast urbanised, but in a haphazard manner.
Amaravati’s construction will be underpinned by both modern technology and heritage. The ancient Amaravati with a museum that is drawing crowds amidst euphoria over the new city is being left untouched. Designed to be the biggest multi-purpose hub on India’s east coast, it will have exclusive zones for commerce, trade, industry, knowledge, medicine, governance, greenery and tourism.
Popularly known as “Babu”, Naidu returned to power last year after a decade in the opposition and political wilderness. He is easily one of the most dynamic politicians and chief ministers India has. He had earlier supped with the likes of Bill Clinton and Bill Gates who were impressed with his visionary approach and his developing Cyberabad, the information technology hub at the turn last century.
Politically savvy, Naidu is on the right side of Modi who has agreed to bear part of Amaravati’s cost, and of the latter’s twin platforms: “Look East/Act East Policy” and “Make in India”.
Like Tamil Nadu, Naidu also wants to use the 974km coastline on the Bay of Bengal. Located bang opposite Southeast Asia, he is inviting the investors whom he also offers the huge Indian market. He is a populist. Before the city’s foundation, he rode the helicopter to spray soil and water from 13,000 villages in his state and sprinkled water from Jerusalem, Mecca and other holy places.
Conscious that large projects like Amaravati could get delayed indefinitely if people refuse to part with their lands, he has got farmers to transfer 33,000 acres (13,355ha) in barely a year through a unique land pooling approach. That, he hopes, will create bonding of the city with the people who are now into partly crowdfunding its building.
Having gone this far, Naidu would have to work hard to dodge the known Indian “issues” — proclivity to corruption and doing things delayed, slipshod and sub-standard. He truly has miles to go before he can create Amaravati that, as per Hindu mythology, is the capital of Swarga, the heaven.
Mahendra Ved
(Courtesy: www.nst.com.my)
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