The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have jointly approved a loan project of Rs 15,000 crore for the construction of the first phase of the capital of Amaravati. For this, the state government has signed an agreement with the World Bank and the ADB in the presence of the central government.
The World Bank and the ADB will provide a total of Rs 13,600 crore of this project loan, Rs 6800 crore each. The state government has informed that the remaining Rs 1400 crore will be provided by the central government, and the central government will provide a guarantee on this loan. This loan will have to be utilized in the next five years.
In addition to this loan, the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) and Germany’s KfW Development Bank have formed a consortium and agreed to provide a loan of Rs 15,000 crore (11,000 crore + 4,000 crore) for the construction of the first phase of the capital of Amaravati.
The state government has not made any effort to get a World Bank loan within five months of coming to power. After the bifurcation of the state in 2014, the Chandrababu Naidu government started efforts to raise a loan from the World Bank as soon as it came to power.
However, as the political alliance between the TDP and the BJP was broken as the 2019 elections approached, the central BJP government withdrew its request for a loan from the World Bank for the capital of Amaravati in July 2019. After that, the YSRCP government brought forward the issue of three capitals, and the World Bank did not take any steps in the last five years.
Now that the TDP-Jana Sena-BJP coalition government has come to power, it has again moved on the precipice of seeking a World Bank loan, a World Bank team has visited the Amaravati capital region, and the loan has been approved in collaboration with the ADB.
The Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) and the Amaravati Development Corporation (ADC) will play a key role as stakeholders in the construction of the capital.
The World Bank has released a 118-page environmental and social systems report on what is going to be built in the capital of Amaravati, how to raise funds for the construction, what the administrative procedures should be, how it should be in the future, etc. In this report, the World Bank has outlined its strategy for the development of the capital of Amaravati, the tasks, procedures and development model to be undertaken by the state government.
This report states that out of a total of 53,748 acres, 34,390 acres have been acquired from 28,740 farmers through land pooling, and that the current capital area is 217 square kilometers, and there are about one lakh people in the 25 existing gram panchayats. It is said that the government complexes required for administration, i.e. the seed capital area, will be 16.94 square kilometers.
