The Amaravati that was conceived by TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu was a global city and global destination. It was a combination of nine sub-cities like government city, judicial city, sports city, media city, cultural city etc.
The architecture of this city was designed by Singapore consortium, which was given the consultancy to prepare the masterplan for the city. The city had wide roads with underground cables, including electricity.
The main building structures of both government city (Assembly, Secretariat buildings) and judicial city (high court) were planned and designed by internationally-reputed architectures – Norman Fosters.
In all, Amaravati was an architectural wonder with skyrocketing buildings and has no Indian culture of street vendors and slums, completely moving away from Indian reality and replicating some modern cities of the world.
Though this dream city or the global city did not take off in the four years of Chandrababu Naidu’s regime, the name, Amaravati, was made almost a brand name with an image of global city, in the minds of the people.
However, the defeat of Chandrababu Naidu and the take over of administration by Jagan changed the fate of this global dream city.
Jagan had removed the judicial and government components of the city and decided to relocate them at Kurnool and Visakhapatnam retaining the Assembly in Amaravati.
He is reconceiving the city as the place of people reflecting the Indian culture and keeping in view the strength of the exchequer.
The architectural wonders too that Naidu had conceived were given up as there is no money for such wonders. Jagan government would be giving house sites for the poor, a component that had no place in Naidu’s Amaravati.
Even as the Opposition and the farmers of 29 capital villages are opposing decentralization of administration, the Jagan government is moving forward to increase the population in the capital city by giving houses to the poor.
The new government had already started the work to create a urban agglomeration by merging all the 29 village panchayats to form a civic body.
It is to be seen how people of the state would take this new concept of Jagan Mohan Reddy on Amaravati, comparing it with that of Chandrababu Naidu.