A key takeaway from the article, “ >Eye on capital, loss in vision ” (April 20), is the mistrust our politicians seem to have in indigenous talent. Despite the clamour around ‘Make In India’, we still fail to scrutinise our bias towards all things “foreign”. The master plan for the Andhra Pradesh capital is proposed to be designed by architects and planners in Singapore. Why were Indian architects and planners, who will have a better and more in-depth understanding of the factors influencing our Indian way of living, not invited? Context-based planning involves various other issues other than planning for fancy high-rise structures. A customised Indian design, which reflects new Indian aspirations, would definitely have helped give AP a new start.
Urvashi Yadav,
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The writer has dwelt elaborately on the need to reject the VGTM area as the new capital in his capacity as having been the chair of the ‘Expert Committee on AP Capital’. He laments the potential loss of 30,000 acres of fertile land, even saying that it can threaten Indian food security. AP has an area of more than 1,60,000 square km or about four crore acres. This is for a capital of five crore people and not for some industrial complex. It does not cause food insecurity. The right or wrong in the selection of an area as the capital is best left to the people, political leaders and highly talented technocrats. The writer’s sermonising was uncalled for.
Konuri Jayakumar,
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One hopes that Mr. Chandrababu Naidu takes into account the writer’s views in the larger interest of AP. Though it is not wrong to zero in on this stretch of land for capital formation, it should not be at the cost of ignoring issues of livelihood, human development and infrastructure development of the entire State. In an era of growing food insecurity, giving away large chunks of very fertile land for the construction of a huge concrete jungle is certainly not a bright idea.
D.V.G. Sankararao,
Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh