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Business News/ Opinion / Quick Edit/  Opinion | Does Andhra need three capitals?
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Opinion | Does Andhra need three capitals?

It’s hard to see how having government functions sprawled across three locations would lend itself to efficient governance

Andhra Pradesh CM Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy (Photo: HT)Premium
Andhra Pradesh CM Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy (Photo: HT)

The Andhra Pradesh assembly on Monday approved a proposal to set up three state capitals—in Visakhapatnam, Kurnool, and Amaravati. Visakhapatnam will be the state’s executive capital, home to its Raj Bhavan and Secretariat, and Kurnool will be its judicial capital, while Amaravati will have its legislative assembly. The move reduces the pre-eminence of Amaravati, envisaged as the sole state capital by the state’s previous government led by the Telugu Desam Party’s N. Chandrababu Naidu.

The current dispensation, led by the YSR Congress Party’s Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, has been undoing various Naidu decisions, and so this is no shock, except to farmers in the Amaravati zone who had been promised good compensation for their land by the earlier government.

But why would the state need three capitals? The Reddy regime’s argument is that it would allow an even development of the state. This is far from convincing. Andhra Pradesh has shrunk in size after Telangana was carved out of it in 2014, and it’s hard to see how having government functions sprawled across three locations would lend itself to efficient governance. Its immediate effect, though, would mostly be an artificial spike in real estate prices in the two new proposed capital regions, and land sharks would move in to part people from their land before the state turns up with offers. Instead of pursuing experiments of this sort, the state should dedicate itself to fulfilling the aspirations of its people. Assuredly, a single capital would be good enough.

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Published: 20 Jan 2020, 05:10 PM IST
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