Chandrababu’s return to Andhra helm set to reignite Amaravati capital dream

Walking into any small-time real estate agent’s office in Tullur village in Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh, one would see on the wall a map – the detailed master plan of the Amaravati capital city.

Spread over 217 sq km of land, the Amaravati city was TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu’spet project which had taken shape in 2015, barely one year after Naidu took over as Andhra Pradesh chief minister following the state’s bifurcation.

However, in 2019, the development of this city, named after Andhra Pradesh’s Buddhist heritage, had come to a halt after Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy spearheaded the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) to a landslide victory in the state Assembly polls.

After taking charge as the CM, Jagan decided to have three state capitals – Visakhapatnam as the “executive capital”, Amaravati as the “legislative capital” and Kurnool as the “judicial capital” – stalling all construction projects in Amaravati.

With the TDP storming back to power by sweeping the current Andhra polls, the Amaravati capital region is likely to see a revival marked with the construction and real estate boom, whose green shoots are apparent.

Indicating a change in the situation, one of the dignitaries who met Naidu in Delhi on June 5 to greet him over his poll triumph, was Alluri Narayana Raju, the director of Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC) Urban Infrastructure Ltd, which was one of the construction majors in charge of infrastructure development in Amaravati. Some of the construction projects in the proposed capital was also to be taken up by the L&T as well as the Shapoorji Pallonji Group.

A TDP source told The Indian Express, “He (Raju) was here to meet the TDP leaders including industrialist Galla Jayadev.”

Raju, however, told The Indian