Capital shift pending, but Jaganmohan Reddy plans grand makeover for Visakhapatnam

Fourteen months after he made the legislative move to set up three capitals for Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy is still managing the state affairs from Amaravati, about 400 Kms away from his planned executive seat.

Obstructing Jagan's highway to Visakhapatnam are dozens of petitions in the High Court filed by Amaravati region farmers, who parted with their lands in 2015 for the mega capital project, public representatives challenging the capital decentralisation. The court had in August last year barred Reddy from moving the capital to Vizag.

However, the legal blockade appears to have not truncated the CM's focus on the port-city. Sitting in his camp office in Tadepalli, Jagan is drawing up plans to lift the stature of Vizag, in preparation for “the definite relocation.”

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On Tuesday, Reddy discussed a blueprint to build a Rs 14,000 crore metro, from Vizag Steel Plant to the planned Bhogapuram airport – a stretch of 77 kilometers with 53 stations. In addition, a 60.2 kilometer tram corridor is proposed to be built with an estimated Rs 6,000 crore investment.

Jagan also instructed the officials to prioritise the Beach Corridor Project and Bhogapuram international airport works. “While the beach road from Vizag to Bhimili would be expanded, a proposal is made for laying a beach road from Bhimili to Bhogapuram with an estimation of Rs 1,167 crore, including land acquisition expenses,” officials said.

Keeping the future needs of the city in consideration, the CM also wants the work on the pipeline taking Godavari waters from Polavaram to Visakhapatnam to commence immediately.

In January 2020, the YSRCP dominated state assembly had passed two Bills – one stripping former CM Chandrababu Naidu's brainchild Amaravati of its sole capital status and the other to establish the executive capital at Visakhapatnam, the judiciary in Kurnool with Amaravati remaining only as of the legislative capital.

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With the opposition TDP controlled legislative council blocking the passage then, the assembly passed the bills again in June during the short duration budget session. After a month’s time elapsed, the bills received governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan's assent in July.

The Covid-19 pandemic and later the replacement of JK Maheshwari with Arup Kumar Goswami as the AP chief justice in January is said to have caused an administrative delay in the case hearings.

Counsel for the Amaravati farmers VV Lakshminarayana expects the high court to take up regular hearing on the capital shifting cases from next week.

“The chief justice headed bench would hear the case on Friday. As of now, about 55 petitions of farmers and others are before the court, contesting the capital relocation on various grounds like a breach of their agreements with the earlier government and violations of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act 2014,” Lakshminarayana told DH.

Meanwhile, the word on the street is that Jagan is planning to shift his camp office to Vizag in May.