The capital city of Amaravati, as proposed to be developed by former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, appears to be as good as dumped.
This was evident from the statement of state finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy at the secretariat on Wednesday.
He was explaining the reasons for the closure of Amaravati start-up area project of Singapore government and gave several hints that the original capital city plan itself is not possible.
He said the Singapore project was closed as it was not found feasible, which involved huge investment which do not match the proposed development.
“This project is a small part of the big huge city was proposed to be developed. The huge city along with the area around it which comprises the CRDA, is about 217 sq.km, which is roughly about two times size of Mumbai including Navi Mumbai and suburbs,” he pointed out.
The minister said Amaravati area was roughly about one lakh acres of which 35,000 acres of fertile land was acquired through land pooling and another 40,000 acres of forest land was proposed to be acquired by deforesting the existing forest, apart from another 10,000 acres of government land.
“During deliberations, it was realized that it requires about Rs two lakh crores of money to develop that one lakh acres which is the size state annual budget. One can understand that the project would take decades and decades to be completed. Neither the time permits nor even the finances permit this sort of development in such a short time,” he said.
The government of AP has now realized the various other requirements of the state today like infrastructure development of health, industries, employment to youth and the holistic development of the entire state with 13 districts.
It clearly shows the Jagan government has dumped Amaravati project once and for all.