Amaravati works: Legislators’ residential complex to be ready in 9 months

Vijayawada: Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu is speeding up the construction of capital Amaravati and has initiated a temporary ‘jungle clearance’ exercise. The residential complexes for MLAs and MLCs are likely to be completed in nine months.

The new state government's push to restart the works is boosting the morale of the Amaravati region and its surrounding areas while it is also giving a boost to the markets.

The AP Capital Region Development Authority which remained inactive for the past five years has been activated after the formation of the TD-led alliance government. It started clearing the weeds from the 25 designated areas.

Urban development minister Ponguru Narayana said Amaravati would be constructed by following the original Master Plan with the aim of AP having “one of the world’s top five capital cities.” The plan was to be implemented in three phases. It has been estimated that `48,000 crore will be required for the works in the first phase. With the first phase, the city construction works will be completed. In the second phase, the metro rail works will be taken up.

CRDA has carried out jungle clearance works in 25 areas in Amaravati Capital. It prepared estimates to carry out further clearance works. This would require `36.50 crore, and minister Narayana would do the needful. The tender process will be completed in a week and this work is expected to be completed in a month’s time.

Some 29,966 farmers from 29 villages of Amaravati had offered 34,400 acres of land under the Land Pooling System mooted by the former TD government with a provision for ‘returnable’ plots. A total of 63,410 returnable plots were offered to the farmers, of which 37,479 were residential plots and 25,931 commercial plots.

The farmers said their returnable plots were not developed in the past five years. They were unable to identify these plots due to the growth of weeds and grass in the layouts.

The Amaravati farmers took the issue of the present state of the returnable plot layouts to the notice of chief minister Chandrababu Naidu. Following this, he gave orders to the officials to start the clearance works in the residential and commercial returnable layouts.

In all, 135 public and private organisations were allotted lands in Amaravati during the previous TD term. They all backtracked after Jagan Reddy came to power in 2019 and dumped the Amaravati capital city project.

According to minister Narayana, 45 central government offices would revive their activities in Amaravati. Some of these institutions have already begun negotiations with CRDA for handover of the lands allotted to them after clearing the bushes and shrubs in the area.

CRDA aims to complete the stalled construction of MLA-MLC residential complexes in the next nine months. Assembly Speaker Chintakayala Ayyanna Patrudu inspected the legislators’ building complex, conducted a review meeting with CRDA officials and asked them to complete the works in nine months.

Patrudu said there were 12 towers with 288 residences for members of the assembly and council. Some 77 per cent of the works had been completed by 2019. After completion of the rest of the works, these flats would be allotted to the legislators.