The tall claims being made by the Telugu Desam Party-led coalition government headed by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu that Amaravati capital city is going to be developed as a economic hub has not created any euphoria among the Amaravati farmers.
Even as the Naidu government is going ahead with its renewed capital development plans and proposed second phase of land pooling, farmers are apprehensive that it will not fetch any real benefits for them, at least in the next few years.
According to reports coming from the capital region, the farmers, who had given away their precious land for Amaravati capital city a decade ago, have not gained anything much from the capital plan.
While the capital city works are still in the initial stages, their land values have not gone up much as projected by Naidu in the past.
“In the first place, there is a lot of delay and uncertainty in handing over the returnable plots – both residential and commercial – to the farmers. Secondly, there has been no development in the allotted plots – there are no roads, no power supply, no drainage and water supply,” a farmer pointed out.
As a result, the plot values have remained stagnant and there are not many buyers for these plots, even if some farmers who are in need of money want to sell them.
“Naidu’s claim that Amaravati is going to be an economic hub, much better than Hyderabad, is just a humbug. There is no value to the land here,” another farmer said.
He pointed out that Hyderabad is a growing economic hub as it has been generating 60% of the state revenue, as it has a lot of IT and non-IT companies and commercial establishments that generate a lot of employment.
“What is there in Amaravati? It is going to have government establishments like state secretariat and HOD towers, assembly building and high court; besides residential quarters for MLAs, MLCs and MPs, judges, IAS and IPS officers and state government employees. This will not generate any economic activity,” he argued.
Even the five-star hotels, universities, hospitals and sports facilities would not make a city an economic hub.
Most of the IT companies and other industrial establishments which have huge employment potential are coming up in Visakhapatnam and some in Rayalaseema region.
“But in Amaravati, one can only see big residential towers, real estate projects, banks and government offices. This will not generate much employment. Maybe, in future, there will be commercial activity there, but for the farmers who gave away their lands, there is nothing to rejoice,” the farmer said.
The farmers are taking social media to appeal to the chief minister not to play with their lives again with fancy projects in Amaravati.
“We already suffered enough in the first phase of land pooling and we urge the government not to trouble us in the name of Phase-2 and Phase-3 expansion of Amaravati,” they said.
“We were living our lives peacefully in our villages. Even if no one cared for us, our livelihoods were moving on steadily. You came, raised us up with promises, and then dumped us,” the farmers said in their message.
The farmers also expressed skepticism over the long-term viability of Amaravati as a self-sustaining capital city, particularly in the absence of stable and sustained political consensus.
They argued that Amaravati’s future remains uncertain unless the current style of politics changes fundamentally, and claimed that neither the present ruling leadership’s political successors nor opposition forces appear genuinely committed to transforming the capital region into a major economic centre.
