The Andhra Pradesh government requested the High Court to remove the timelines or extend the time granted by it for developing the trunk infrastructure in Amaravati capital city by five years without having prejudice to the option to seek legal remedies keeping in view the impossibility of complying with the court directions in the given timeframe.
Chief secretary Sameer Sharma said in an affidavit that the application for removal of timelines or extension of time was filed to avoid giving an impression that the court directions are being defied even before the judgment dated March 3, 2022 is appropriately challenged or legal remedies worked out.
He stated that the process of development entails the revival or restarting of contracts for various works connected with the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS) which are incomplete and consequently revival agreements have to be signed with the existing contractors.
The value of contracted works were quantified at approximately Rs.42,232 crore. Most of these works were executed primarily in anticipation of loans from Multilateral Financial Institutions (MFI) but most of them did not fructify.
Revival of these contracts require the resumption of negotiations with the MFI and the works are also partly contingent upon the release of grants by the Central government. Both are time-consuming processes although discussions were started.
The need for funding was also informed to the banks and the bankers mentioned that they have to consult their headquarters for taking decisions. Restarting the works in various road alignments involved lands that were mired in litigation.
Mr. Sharma further said notwithstanding the challenges, works resumed at two sites i.e. MLC and MLAs’ and All India Services officers’ towers and works related to NGOs’, gazetted officers’ and Group-D apartments were expected to be resumed in the due course.
Another task that remained is the development and allotment of reconstituted plots to the beneficiaries of LPS, and change of land use was required for the land parcels identified in zones containing non-returnable plots.
Therefore, the reasonable minimum time required for completion of a host of the trunk infrastructure works is 60 months.
Development of the capital city and the capital region would take years to complete due to the issues involved in it. Moreover, the government has limited resources and constraints and there were priorities of welfare and development activities. Broadly, the matter pertains to the creation of LPS infrastructure and development of the capital city.
It may be noted that the HC directed the State and the Capital Region Development Authority to complete the infrastructure works within one month from the date of its order (dated March 3, 2022) and to construct and develop Amaravati Capital City and Region in six months.
