Chandigarh is the first greenfield city developed in free India to provide an administrative capital for the Government of Punjab displaced from Lahore and habitat for the refugees who came to India in the wake of Partition. As it turned out, there were positive and negative aspects to that city’s development.
Six decades later, another greenfield city is sought to be built near Vijayawada on the Krishna in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh for the new State’s capital. To facilitate site selection, the Government of India appointed an Expert Committee under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, headed by K.C. Sivaramakrishnan. The terms of reference included ensuring the least possible dislocation to existing agriculture systems, preservation of local ecology, promoting environmentally sustainable growth, minimising the cost of construction and acquisition of land and so on. In its report submitted in August 2014, the Committee did not favour a greenfield capital-city for Andhra at this stage. It gave the opinion that if the State wanted to pursue this option, it should carry out a careful search for locations where suitable large parcels of government land may be available.
But the government has now launched plans to build a ‘world-class’ greenfield capital and chartered Singapore consultants for its master plan and development. These consultants would draw up a Capital City Master Plan for approximately 125 sq km (30,888 acres) and do a detailed Seed Development Master Plan for the construction of the approximately 8 sq km (1977 acres) first section of the city. It would be a replica of the sky-scrapers of the city-state from where a predominantly agrarian state would be administered! The State government is moving at great speed, throwing mandatory/legal requirements to the winds. The land-pooling process for 30,888 acres in the 29 villages that have been identified has been initiated in a hurry.
The 29 villages are of two kinds — one with irrigated multi-crop land within 2 km of the Krishna, and another with rain-fed land raising commercial crops like cotton. These villages have a vibrant agricultural economy of Rs.1,000 crores a year, with complete farm-to-market linkages. The soil is rich with agriculture/horticulture/plantation/floriculture/vegetable crops of 110 varieties. Over 100,000 working persons including many women are earning secure livelihood from farming and trading in these villages. Denuding this land will affect the food security of the State and the country. Acquisition of such land is prohibited under Section 10 of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 even for public purposes, let alone property development.
Under this arbitrary pooling, land-owners should surrender their land free of cost to the government and get residential-cum-commercial plots on barter basis and for a small monetary compensation per acre per annum. The farmers can sell these ‘urban plots’ after five years, making money through speculative practices. It is not clear how they would ‘develop’ these plots and who would buy them. There is nothing for the over 35,000 share-croppers, tenant-farmers and landless labour whose livelihood depends on this land. As if closing the whole issue, at a press conference on December 7, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said a majority of the farmers had come forward to surrender their land and that the pooling process would start pronto.
The hollowness of this claim was evident during a visit by a fact-finding team of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) to the villages on December 6. No farmer in the irrigated multi-cropped area was willing to surrender land. Though some dry-land farmers were willing, they had no faith in the land-pooling scheme. Obviously the feedback received by the Chief Minister is from the real estate and property dealers, who are coercing farmers to part with their land under threat of forcible acquisition or duress. They have within a month taken over 3,500 acres from farmers, involving more than Rs. 4,000 crores, almost the entire amount paid in cash. This has created uncertainty, confusion and fear among villagers.
No feasibility study for the project has been done. No Environmental Impact Assessment or Social Impact Assessment has been undertaken. The objectives and character of the city and the size and composition of the population are unclear. There is no facilitating legislation. All that has been done so far is to draft the AP Capital Region Development Bill to set up an Authority that can acquire any movable or unmovable property by purchase, exchange, gift, lease, mortgage, negotiated settlement or by other means permissible by law. The announced land-pooling is not permissible under any law.
At best Andhra Pradesh needs an administrative capital for a million-plus people. With new high-rise and high-density design and technology, around 6,000 acres of dry land would suffice. There is no need to destroy hundreds of square kilometres of real greenery to build an unreal ‘green-field’ fantasy and destabilise a vibrant and entrepreneurial rural economy. Will the Centre be party to this unsustainable ‘development’ by bank-rolling it with one lakh crore rupees of tax-payers money as demanded by the State government?
deva1940@gmail.com
( The author, who was Administrative cum Estate Officer for Chandigarh in the 1970s, is a former 1AS officer. He led the NAPM fact-finding team.)
