Motkuri Brahmayya, a septuagenarian farmer from Malkapuram village, is a happy old man. Malkapuram is one of the 29 villages that form the core of the capital city of Amaravati. He gave his eight-acre fertile land to the Capital Region Area Development Authority (CRDA) under the land pooling system and received 8,000 square yards of a commercial area in the same village and gets an annuity of Rs 50,000 per acre of land that he has pooled.

“If Naidu returns to power, he will continue what he has started," Brahmayya told DH. "But if YS Jaganmohan Reddy wins the elections, he will stop developing the areas where farmers have not pooled land and kept it with themselves.” The farmer and his family have not sold the land as some others did and they decided to keep it. “Few sold the land and made money. But we want to wait as the value for 100 square yards shot up to Rs 36 lakh,” he said.

The contrast in the landscape of the capital region that one finds when they enter the capital from Rayapudi is because some handed over the land while others didn’t. The land that was surrendered to the CRDA is barren as no crops were grown from 2017 while those who still own the land are growing three crops a year. 

“The inception of Amaravati with brand new infrastructure has hurt the real estate business in nearby Vijayawada," said Sekhar, a realtor in Kishtayapalem. "The value of an acre of land is around Rs 3 to 5 cr in the CRDA area. All those who have invested in land here even before the land was pooled made money.” 

As the landscape of the capital changes and structures come up, including the Secretariat, the High Court, the housing complex for the MLAs and officers and the six-lane seed access road, there's confidence in the minds of farmers who sacrificed their land for the development of the state. “I have always dreamed of owning a horse stable," said Appayya, a farmer from Velagapudi. "After land pooling, I sold a part of the land I got and fulfilled my dream.”

However, not everyone is happy. Venkateshwara Reddy of Kistayapalem said that only temporary structures were built by Naidu’s government in the past five years. “Farmers are sitting idle," Reddy said. "We used to harvest three crops a year as all the land is on the riverfront and there is plenty of water.”