AP govt in for NGT shock?

Environmentalists wonder why Amaravati cannot be just an administrative capital. Why replace natural wood with landscape gardens and drive away sparrows and bring in pigeons?

The Tribunal directed the government to submit a report on the wet lands and lands that might be submerged in floods. The NGT will this week hear the petition against the AP, which said the the capital region was vulnerable to earthquakes and the project would destroy ecology and agriculture.

The place consists of rich riverine farm lands, as it is inherently endowed with a beautiful pastoral ecosystem, in which agriculture has snuggled itself cosily into the folds of environment, a land of vegetable orchards, neem woods, thickly vegetated hills, narrow paths protected by canopy of peepals and farmlands with sparrows nesting in the awnings.

Now, the place is going to turn into a Singapore, as the streets proposed look like Singapore, canals will make city rival Venice. Yet, the logo designed is intended to project the ancient heritage of Amaravati. In short, it will be a city of blue and green, blue for Krishna and green for the trees. The naysayers butt in: “But the place is already blue and green, if the purpose is only to build a capital, where the lawmakers sit and administrators decided to disturb an ecosystem over 7500 sq.km area.”

The questions that emerge for environmentalist concerns are such as “why cannot it be just an administrative capital? Why replace natural wood with landscape gardens? Why drive away sparrows and brings in pigeons?” The fact is that AP is not building a capital, it is building a city, it does not want Amaravati to be just an administrative capital like Canberra, Ottawa, Gandhinagar or Raipur.

In fact, the vision is that Amaravati will be the answer to the needs of the people of AP, who have been dispossessed of Hyderabad and are in search of grand expression for their identity. It wants a city that is an economic powerhouse, where both international capital and the localities talent for enterprise and hard work combine to produce well-being for millions of people.

For the leaders gripped by such vision, environmentalists’ cocnerns may sound a bit quibbling. They brush aside the environmentalists’ arguments and want to go forward by grabbing fertile lands by imposing land acquisition act, if need be.

Even, the Union Minister for Environments, Forests and Climate Change helped the State in this matter with a statement that “the process of securing environmental clearances has been completed and (AP) will get orders soon.” This was followed by the officials’ vague advertisements in local daily news papers stating that clearance have been received and building of the capital would start soon.

But the environmentalists are concerned that neither the State government nor the AP Capital Region Development Authority has undertaken the survey for the capital city region for its bio-resources, water bodies and the profound impact of the project on the socio-economic aspects of the region, if it destroys ecological balance of nature and so on.

Uncertainty on environmental front is giving jitters to the planners of the Amaravati, who, after the grand launch of project by the Prime Minister, are raring to ground the project by securing finance for construction and attracting investments to make the city viable. They are buoyed by the recent WB ranking which placed the State at No. 2 among the States in respect of ease of doing business.

Meanwhile, environmental concerns are likely to scare away international investors even if the Union government is supportive of the Amaravati project. However, the State which has committed to provide three lakh jobs a year, they find that the only way out is urbanisation and industry for which a plenty of land is needed. If the NGT thinks otherwise, it will turn out to be a huge embarrassment to the State government.

By G Rajendera Kumar