News Highlights:
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which gained power in June 2014 when the State was divided, chose Amaravati as its capital city, even though the choice of Andhra Pradesh’s capital has long been divisive.
Key takeaway:
- To plan, carry out, finance, and secure the planned development of the capital region development area, the government subsequently passed the AP CRDA Act.
- It established the AP Capital Region Development Authority.
- The Andhra government had acquired approximately 33,000 acres of land from farmers in and around the Amaravati region. So the decision to change the capital may affect most of the farmers living out there.
What changed:
- The story so far:
- Andhra Pradesh Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020, replaced the earlier plan of building Amaravati as the capital to developing 3 capital cities.
- Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, the current chief minister, proposed making Visakhapatnam the executive capital, Kurnool the judicial capital, and Amaravati the legislative capital as a result of the report.
- 3 Capital Plan:
- The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly passed the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Bill, 2020.
- The Bill intends to shape the state government’s plan of having three capitals — executive capital in Visakhapatnam, legislative in Amaravati and judicial in Kurnool.
- According to the government, multiple state capitals will allow the development of several regions of the state, leading to inclusive growth.
- benefits of the plan:
- It helps to promote Even development in the state as north-coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema districts are backwards compared to the central coastal districts.
- A secretariat in Vizag can help develop regions like Vizianagaram and Srikakulam, which consists of tribal and rural areas and are the most backward regions of the state.
- It helps to promote decentralised governance to spatially de-concentrate executive power driven by region-specific economic activities.
Multiple Capitals concerns:
- Executive and legislative capital challenges
- Separation of executive and legislative capital can be challenging.
- In the Parliamentary system of government, which has been adopted in India, the executive and the legislature functions are closely connected.
- When the legislative assembly is in session, administrative officers are required all the time to present the bill, for briefing the ministers, etc.
- When the legislative assembly is not in session, the decision-making by the executive requires a lot of input from various sources, including the legislators, who are the people’s representatives.
- Logistically difficult:
- The development of a region can be done through policy interventions like industrial policy.
- However, separating the capitals can be against the convenience of the administration as well as the people.
- Also, it will be logistically difficult to implement.
Way Forward:
- Given that the present proposal leads to more concerns than benefits, there is a need for reconsideration on the part of the government. All state wings, including the legislature, executive and judiciary, need to sit together for effectiveness.
- There is a need to evaluate the performance of the legislative councils and suggest suitable corrections in their functioning to make them truly effective. The upper house of the state legislatures may be retained, given the benefits it offers.
- There is a need to restructure and reorganise the election process for the legislative councils. Provisions must be made to include management professionals, engineers, doctors, economists and other subject matter experts in the legislative council.
Pic Courtesy: Freepik
Content Source: The Hindu