Making capital out of political rivalry (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Governance
Prelims level: Sivaramakrishnan Committee
Mains level: Recommendation made by Sivaramakrishnan Committee of formation of Andhra Pradesh Capital

Context:

• Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has hinting at the establishment of three capitals, citing the South Africa.
• Mr. Reddy has announced in Andhra Pradesh Assembly about having Amaravati, Visakhapatnam and Kurnool as the legislative, executive and judicial capitals respectively.

Wait for a capital:

• Such a move by Mr. Reddy would mean that people of Andhra Pradesh have to wait for more time to realise their dream of having a place that could be called a capital.
• When the Telugu-speaking Andhra State was carved out of the composite Madras State in 1953, Kurnool was made the capital and many people had to move out of the then-Madras city.
• Three years later, in 1956, the erstwhile Hyderabad State was merged with the Andhra State, including Rayalaseema, to form Andhra Pradesh with Hyderabad as capital.

Role of Sivaramakrishnan Committee:

• Sivaramakrishnan Committee, constituted by the Central government to suggest choices for the capital, did not favour one ‘super-capital’ and pitched for decentralised development.
• But, the panel also never said that there should be a string of capitals across the State as is being interpreted now. Perhaps, it was for this reason that the government went in for a fresh committee headed by former IAS officer G.N. Rao to get a report in sync with its thinking.
• It came as no surprise that the committee’s report had all the points made by Mr. Reddy in the Assembly, two days earlier!
• This committee suggested that Andhra Pradesh should have a High Court in Kurnool, with a bench each in Visakhapatnam and Amaravati; and an Assembly in Amaravati, which also conducts a few sessions in Visakhapatnam.
• The proposal promises to be a logistical nightmare with officials frequently having to hop from one city to another.

Naidu’s vision and fallacies:

• Mr. Naidu had dumped the Sivaramakrishnan Committee report and its objections to locating the capital in the Vijayawada-Guntur-Tenali-Mangalagiri stretch of land — a fertile stretch.
• He bulldozed the panel’s warnings and went ahead to build a ‘dream capital’ at the very place.
• Mr. Naidu’s vision was that of a capital as grand as Singapore or any other contemporary capital city with characteristics like iconic public buildings and multiple cities within a city.
• Mr. Naidu wanted the capital to be a robust growth engine that would attract investments, promote tourism and create innumerable jobs, like Hyderabad closer home, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
• Through Amaravati, Mr. Naidu thought his name would remain etched in public memory forever.
• In hindsight, Mr. Naidu seems to have gone for an overkill, pooling in a whopping 33,000 acres for the capital and taking his own sweet time to draw a master plan, for which he paid a heavy price and lost badly in the election.
• There is also a charge made by YSRCP leaders that lot of ‘insider trading’ happened and Mr. Naidu’s supporters benefited.

Conclusion:

• To leaving aside Amaravati’s scale and size, a centrally located capital has already come into existence with the completion of Secretariat, Assembly and High Court buildings.
• Should not a government that appears to be sensitive to extravagant public expenditure capitalise on this infrastructure, instead of creating something new in various cities at an enormous cost?
• At a time when political rivals of conflicting ideologies have come together to form a government in a neighbouring State based on a Common Minimum Programme, is it too much to expect something like CMP on a capital city?

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to the hydrogen fuel cell, consider the following statements:
1. The fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to generate an electric current, water being the only byproduct.
2. Fuel cells produce much smaller quantities of greenhouse gases and none of the air pollutants that cause health problems.

Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) None of the above

Ans: C
Mains Questions:
Q.1) Can a capital city be divided into three or more pieces and spread across the State based on regional and other considerations? Comment.