It looks like Singapore government, which had played a major role in preparing the master plan and also taking up development of core capital in Amaravati, has lost its hopes on the revival of the project.
According to a report published in a Singapore daily, prospects for the revival of the stalled capital city of Amaravati appears to be dire.
The project came up for discussion at the India Singapore Business and Innovation Summit held a couple of days ago.
Singapore’s ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh sought to know from Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jayashankar whether Amaravati project was "sick, very sick or dead." But the foreign minister evaded an answer, saying it was the decision of the state government.
Andhra Pradesh finance minister Buggana Rajendranath did not make any mention of the proposed city, a pet project of the previous government, in his speech at the summit at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre.
Buggana, however, made it clear in an interview to Singapore daily The Straits Times, described Amaravati as something of a damp squib that did not figure high in the priorities of the state government, which is struggling to build an industrial base and generate revenue.
"We don't have the money to build a city. Our priority is bringing up the standard of living, providing equitable development to the entire state, providing an infrastructure for creating a manufacturing base, rather than to build a single city," he said.
"You have all of these lined up against that one issue. You can have this or that,” Buggana commented.
Singapore has been involved in the project since its start in 2014, when Andhra Pradesh embarked on the venture because it lost its capital city Hyderabad to the newly created state of Telangana.
Surbana Jurong submitted the city's masterplan in 2015, and a consortium of Ascendas-Singbridge and Sembcorp Development was announced in 2017 as the master developers. It was conceived to be 10 times the size of Singapore, requiring an investment of billions of dollars.
Senior IAS officers P V Ramesh and S S Rawat also made it clear that Amaravati might not be abandoned, but a decision on it may yet take months.
They said the state was in favour of developing a decentralised urban environment rather than concentrating all development in a single, large city.
