A tale of two contrasting cities
by 2015. But so far, five years after the first offices shifted, only about 20,000 people have moved in. Massive funding has gone into the making of the city since its Master Plan was firmed up in 2008.
“More than ₹10,000 crore — ₹5,000 crore for building physical infrastructure, rest on land acquisition — has been invested so far. Major chunk is from state resources,” said Aman Kumar Singh, chairman, NRDA.
Residents say the problem is not in urban infrastructure of the city, where roads are wide, sidewalks landscaped, and the transportation is smart.
“You can see buildings of all hues here. The only missing link is the people. Unless people start living here the city will not grow. Why will people stay here?” says Anshuman Vohra, who works in a construction company and is a temporary resident.
The problem, he says, is in the lack of “retail outlets, affordable schools or health care facilities”.
With Naya Raipur’s experience still fresh, Amaravati, the upcoming greenfield capital of Andhra Pradesh, is treading cautiously. The city is still at a very nascent stage of its existence. It was declared the capital only in 2014, when Telangana was carved out of the state.
One of the first things Andhra chief minister Chandrababu Naidu did to
AP Legislative
Assembly passed a resolution to set up greenfied capital in September 2014
Phase I development comprising roads, trunk infrastructure is to be completed by 2020
So far, the Centre has given &2500cr An interim secretariat started functioning from Nov. 2016.
Permanent secretariat will be completed in March 2019. ensure Amaravati succeeded was to pack his bags and shift base to the new capital from Hyderabad. His cabinet colleagues and bureaucrats gingerly followed. In record time, a temporary secretariat, assembly building, other offices and staff quarters were built as nearly 6,000 government officials moved in with their families.
The energy in the city is palpable, with construction work dominating the horizon. People are erecting new buildings to rent them out, and more than a dozen small hotels have come up in nearby villages such as Velagupudi and Malkapu-
Masterplan sanctioned in 2008
To be developed in three phases by 2030.
Phase I was to be completed by 2015
Projected population by 2015 is 1.5 lakh Actual population (who have moved to Naya Raipur) is approx 20,000
Total 21 residential sectors to be developed. Only three completed
Secretariat started functioning in Nov 2012. ram. Two technical education institutions opened last month.
“The local economy is thriving. Most of the new residents have, for the time being, settled down in either one of the villages near the Secretariat Building or in Vijaywada and Guntur,” said M Venkat Rao, 48, a resident of Malkapuram village.
Despite the initial momentum, officials here realise that building a city from the scratch is not easy.
“The major challenge is funding. We are a revenue-deficit state. We can’t use all our funds to develop Amaravati. The Centre has so far given ₹2,500 crore but the requirement in the next three years is over ₹32,000 crore. We are tying up with multilateral agencies for garnering more resources,” said Dr Sreedhar Cherukuri, commissioner, Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority. He added, “Earlier our work revolved around building the administrative capital. But we are now focusing on economic development.”
Naya Raipur might have one of the best physical infrastructures, but the government failed to factor in a crucial aspect when it planned its new capital: social infrastructure.
“We thought once the physical infra is in place, people will shift. But there are no retail outlets, no economic activity. There have to be employment generation opportunities. We are addressing these issues. Our central business district will be ready by early next year. Once that is ready, and with the chief minister and governor’s house — where work will start soon — done, we are hopeful people will also move in,” said Mukesh Bansal, CEO, NRDA. Since Independence, three greenfield capitals have come up in India: Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar and Gandhinagar. Except for Chandigarh, the other two, especially Gandhinagar took a long time to come to life.
According to urban experts, cities such as Gandhinagar and Naya Raipur take decades to pick up because planners who design new cities do not study the Indian psyche.
“In India, people want to live in a city where there is social cohesion… people want to talk to each other, interact. The new cities such as Naya Raipur do not provide this. Social sustainability is not there. That is why these cities have failed to attract people. Borrowing concepts from other countries won’t work here because they are so alien to the needs and habits of people,” said Saswat Bandyopadhyay, professor of planning at Ahmedabad’s CEPT University.
Building new cities should be based on economic impulse, a sound business case, says Srikanth Viswanathan, CEO, Janaagraha. “A city is not created just by constructing roads and buildings. Trade, investment and economy have to be taken care of,” he said.
For Naya Raipur to have a life, urban experts say the first step will be to move the government lock, stock, and barrel to the city. Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh can take inspiration from his Andhra counterpart, who realised very early that for moving people to a new city, he will have to make the first move. “I knew if I shifted to Amaravati, my ministers and bureaucrats will follow suit. Once the government comes, governance will follow. This helped build people’s trust,” N Chandrababu Naidu told HT.