[Urbanstudy] Amaravati, an Example of Flawed Urban Policy

[Vinay Baindur]

http://thewire.in/58016/amaravati-an-example-of-flawed-urban-policy/



Amaravati, an Example of Flawed Urban Policy
BY NANDINI MAJUMDAR <http://thewire.in/author/nmajumdar/> ON 16/08/2016
<http://thewire.in/58016/amaravati-an-example-of-flawed-urban-policy/> •
Andhra Pradesh’s new ‘world-class’ capital city will require enormous
amounts of energy and resources to build and to run, while destroying
precious natural environments and local livelihoods.
[image: The planned Amaravati city. Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

The planned Amaravati city. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

On August 10, the National Green Tribunal heard a report raising objections
to Amaravati, the new capital city of Andhra Pradesh planned by the state
government – the Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party.

Delhi-based architect Romi Khosla and physicist Vikram Soni, who have been
working on their concept of the ‘natural city’ since 2014, say that their
concept presents a new model for Asia’s urbanisation. They collaborated
with Satyanarayana Bolisetti, an activist from Andhra Pradesh who has been
fighting for farmers’ rights and the protection of river floodplains, on
the report. It argues that Amaravati’s planned location on the southern
floodplains of the river Krishna violates laws, making the city
environmentally unsustainable and potentially dangerous for human life.

Khosla and Soni have designed an alternate Amaravati, or ‘Amaravati Natural
City’, and have submitted these plans to Naidu’s office, which has not yet
responded.

*A global and narrow vision*

Using a method called ‘land pooling’ – that has been criticised by farmers,
activists and others – the Naidu government has acquired over 30,000 acres
of land on the southern banks of the river Krishna. It promises a
‘world-class’ capital city in the style of Singapore or Dubai , with
glittering corporate and government buildings overlooking the river, wide
avenues, a golf course, high-rise residential complexes and malls and
casinos on islands in the river. The Singapore-based firm Subarna Jurong
prepared the master plan for Amaravati.

This particular vision is unsurprising and far from original. It is in line
with the corporate-driven, trickle down model of development that
international consultant organisations such as the McKinsey Global
Institute and Scott Wilson have recommended India follow in the coming
decades, and that the Narendra Modi government has adhered to.

Khosla has addressed Mckinsey’s recommendations in its report, India’s
Global Awakening, in an article he wrote in*Economic and Political Weekly*.
Writing about establishing industrial corridors, mega-cities and high-speed
rail lines and roads, Khosla warns:

“The enormous footprint and mega presence of new projects does not address
the critical factor of ecological balance through self-sufficiency in a
global environment which is struggling to fight climate change. The
implementation of these projects in the form planned in these reports will
destroy precious natural environmental resources, while at the same time
snatching what remains from existing users by impoverishing villages and
farms.”

As Khosla, Soni and several other experts have been pointing out,
mega-cities require enormous – unsustainable – amounts of energy and
resources to build and to run, while destroying precious natural
environments and local livelihoods. Amaravati promises to be but the next
example of this kind of flawed urban policy.

The BJP-led government has so far supported Naidu’s extravagant Amaravati,
despite two government-backed reports questioning many of the city’s
aspects and Andhra Pradesh itself mired in debt.

In 2014, the Union government formed a committee under the Andhra Pradesh
Reorganisation Act 2014, headed by K.C. Sivaramakrishnan and comprising
urban planners and design experts, to explore site options for the new
capital city. In August, the committee recommended that the Andhra Pradesh
government focus on long-term development through building a larger
landscape of cities and towns, rather than building a single ‘super-city’.
It also said the large-scale takeover of fertile agricultural land was
unfavourable, as this would lead to a lack of food security in the long run.

In December, the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority Act
2014 or APCRDA established a group by the same name. The Andhra Pradesh
Capital Region Development Authority was the body authorised to conduct the
land pooling and build the city. The APCRDA commissioned Tata Consulting
Engineers to issue an environmental impact assessment (EIA) report. When
published, the report included a number of directives for the state
government, including that the construction and subsequent functioning of
Amaravati would not cause any environmental damage.

Despite these recommendations, in September, Naidu announced that the
region around Vijayawada, Guntur, Tenali and Mangalagiri – the ‘food bowl’
of the southern Krishna floodplains, one of the most fertile agrarian
strips in the country – would be the location of the state’s new capital
city.

Khosla, Soni and Bolisetti contend that apart from being environmentally,
economically and socially destructive, the Naidu government’s plans are in
clear violation of the recommendations made by both the Sivaramakrishnan
committee and the EIA. They claim that their Amaravati Natural City is an
alternative to Naidu’s Subarna Jurong Amaravati, and also a model for a new
kind of Indian city as the country continues to face water scarcity and
climate change – a city that demonstrates how humans can live healthily and
harmoniously with nature.

*Playing with water*

The stretch along the Krishna on which Amaravati will be built is a highly
fertile floodplain – or a catchment area that replenishes itself naturally
during rainfall and flooding, maintaining the water level of the soil, as
well as the flow and ecology of the river, by continuously absorbing and
discharging water.

Constructing on a floodplain would destroy that natural system of
absorption and discharge and severely raise the risk of flash flooding,
Khosla and Bolisetti explain. Several recent disasters have been the result
of encroachment – buildings, roads, dams and embankments – on floodplains:
the flooding of the Adyar and Coovam rivers in Chennai, of the Mithi river
channel in Mumbai, in Srinagar and in Uttarakhand. Building Amaravati on
the Krishna floodplain is akin to asking for a repeat of one of these
disasters.

However, rather than being a threat to human life, floodplains could in
fact be a resource – as long as they are allowed to replenish and balance
themselves. Soni explains that floodplain water is one of the last
unpolluted sources of water for Indian cities: the water extracted from a
floodplain is pure, since it comes from the late monsoon flood, which
annually flushes out the pollution in the river.

Instead of destroying the floodplain with buildings, as the
government-backed Subarna Jurong would do, Khosla, Soni and Bolisetti’s
version of Amravati has planned to preserve two and a half kilometres of
floodplain on either side of the Krishna. The preserved floodplain will
easily yield an annual 60-75 million cubic metres (MCM) of water, which
will be adequate for a population of a million people. The value of this
yield at today’s prices can be taken as Rs 900 crores a year, in itself a
great economic benefit.
[image: Amaravrati Natural City with preserved flood plains. Credit: EIA
Report]
<http://thewire.in/58016/amaravati-an-example-of-flawed-urban-policy/amaravrati-natural-city-with-preserved-flood-plains-2/>
[image: Floodplains are shown either side of Krishna River. Credit: EIA
Report]
<http://thewire.in/58016/amaravati-an-example-of-flawed-urban-policy/floodplains-are-shown-either-side-of-krishna-river-page-111-of-eia-report-3/>

Delhi is already using this non-invasive method to obtain 56 MCM of water a
year, drawn from a 20 km length of the northern Yamuna floodplains. The
Delhi Jal Board, under chairman and water minister Kapil Mishra, plans to
increase this supply to 100 MCM a year.

In a booklet on Amaravati Natural City, published in both Telegu and
English and distributed to farmers, Khosla and Soni write of the severe and
numerous water scarcity problems that India faces: polluted and overdrawn
rivers, groundwater depletion and invasive dams.

The International Water Management Institute has categorised India as
a ‘water stress zone’ and indicated that 33% of India’s rivers are severely
or moderately polluted across their entirety. India and China are the
world’s largest countries with water stress, which will only become an
irreversible catastrophe unless careful action is taken to conserve and
manage water.

Khosla and his colleagues contend that urban planning in India needs to
confront and work with the realities of water scarcity. Projects based on
the ‘McKinsey model’ – Amaravati and others undertaken and planned by the
BJP government – do just the opposite.
[image: MG Devasahayam former IAS officer, Shri Sharad Yadav, Romi Khosla,
Professor Vikram Soni and Professor Amitab Kundu. Credit: Nandini Majumdar]
<http://thewire.in/58016/amaravati-an-example-of-flawed-urban-policy/mg-devasahayam-former-ias-shri-sharad-yadav-romi-khosla-prof-vikram-soni-prof-amitab-kundu/>
[image: Fishermen Leaders from 5 States, Farmer Leaders, Architects,
Activists, Social Scientists etc. Credit: Nandini Majumdar]
<http://thewire.in/58016/amaravati-an-example-of-flawed-urban-policy/fishermen-leaders-from-5-states-farmer-leaders-architects-activists-social-scientists-etc/>

*Playing with lives*

Naidu’s government has been presenting Amaravati as a capital city ‘for
all’ – as India’s first urban centre of truly global standards. But
farmers, activists and others have been questioning the government’s
motives and methods, asking just who the new city will benefit.

In a presentation in Delhi in July 2016, Khosla and Soni described how the
land chosen for Amaravati is currently the source of a vibrant agro-economy
that yields Rs 1000 crore per year, with complete linkages from farm to
market and many participating women entrepreneurs. The soil here is so rich
that over 20,000 farmers in the 29 villages grow three or more crops
annually and more than 120 varieties in total. Even marginal farmers who
own half an acre or less earn more than Rs 30,000 each month. The
destruction of the Krishna floodplain for the construction of Amaravati
would mean the destruction of this rich local economy and these livelihoods.

In December 2014, the Andhra Pradesh government began its own unique
process of ‘land pooling’ to acquire the 30,000 acres required for
Amaravati. Ever since it started, farmers and others have claimed that the
terms on which the pooling is taking place are economically unfair for
farmers and that the government’s methods in convincing farmers to give up
their lands coercive. They have pointed out that the APCRDA is solely
comprised of businessmen and that there is a total lack of transparency and
representation of the real stakeholders in the decision-making.

Following the start of land pooling, Bolisetti, who was contesting for the
position of MP from the Visakhapatnam Lok Sabha constituency at the time,
wrote a letter to Naidu elaborating on all the reasons why constructing the
capital city where planned was such a bad idea.

The National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM), a network of social
activists, has been spearheading the opposition since. In January 2015, it
alleged that the Naidu government has a “hidden agenda”. Former IAS officer
M.G. Devasahayam, who led a fact-finding team of NAPM for investigating the
29 villages within the planned capital region, said that the APCRDA Act was
“introduced in the Assembly overnight and passed [with] no public
consultation”, and was “against the Constitution and… violative of the Land
Acquisition Law of 2013”.

NAPM also organised a national convention in Delhi, in January 2015, in
collaboration with the All India Union of Forest Working People, Delhi
Solidarity Group, Jan Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti and other groups, to oppose
the BJP government’s Land Ordinance Bill, which withdrew certain
requirements in land acquisition for certain projects, such as the Social
Impact Assessment and consent of land owners. The Bill lapsed in August and
never came into being, but, as Bolisetti points out, the question of the
constitutionality of the APCRDA Act, which is based on the Bill, and the
method of land acquisition it allows, remains.

These farmers and critics have been questioning how the Andhra Pradesh
government can proceed with a project that affects lakhs of individuals
without real participation from those very people, is clearly
environmentally destructive and finally how the Union government can back
it.

Amaravati is destructive and inequitable in its very conception and
creation and promises to remain so after it is built. A city like Amaravati
– of glass, steel and concrete, posh centres and poor peripheries, flyovers
connecting peripheries to the centre, malls and high-rise complexes – is
friendly only to those who want and can afford the consumerist lifestyle
that will feed such a city and who can afford to avoid the waste and
pollution that will result from it.

Moreover, as Khosla and Soni write, “Asia cannot copy the industrialised
countries which have stable cities, landscapes and populations. In Asia
there is too much poverty, unemployment and immigration.”Although the
authors do generalise about the vast and varied region of Asia here, their
insights make meaningful the fact that many of Asia’s cities, including
Delhi and Mumbai in India, have become invasive, feeding their own cycles
of poverty and pollution. The Subarna Jurong city promises to turn into
another such invasive mega-city. It presents no sustainable or equitable
alternatives.

Through their concept of the ‘natural city’, Khosla and his colleagues have
been arguing that urban spaces in India need to be planned so as to be in
balance, with themselves and their environments – to be ‘natural’ rather
than ‘invasive’, in the sense that “all living organisms maintain a steady
state reflected in their internal equilibrium”. In other words, India needs
to fundamentally redefine and redesign its idea of urbanisation to
cohesively address the problems of climate change, resource and energy
scarcity, social inequity and poverty.
[image: Map 3 Amaravati Capital City with seed capital in Grey which comes
on flood plains. Credit: EIA Report]
<http://thewire.in/58016/amaravati-an-example-of-flawed-urban-policy/map-3-amaravati-capital-city-with-seed-capital-in-grey-which-comes-on-flood-plains-2/>
[image: Proposed seed capital in floodplains. Credit: EIA Report]
<http://thewire.in/58016/amaravati-an-example-of-flawed-urban-policy/proposed-seed-capital-in-floodplains-4/>
[image: Seed capital boundary in red line which is on 100% on the
floodplains. Credit: EIA Report]
<http://thewire.in/58016/amaravati-an-example-of-flawed-urban-policy/seed-capital-boundary-in-red-line-which-is-on-100-onfloodplains-4/>

*Some positives*

There are some features that demonstrate the city’s internal equilibrium
and cohesiveness in values and practice – the simultaneous preservation and
use of the Krishna floodplains and its waters is one such feature.

Another positive feature is its checkerboard layout. In Khosla and Soni’s
blueprint, built spaces alternate with open spaces of farms, pastures,
orchards and forests, each block is two kilometres squared. The urban
farms, pastures and orchards, irrigated by the city’s treated wastewater,
will make the city self-sufficient in vegetables, fruits and dairy
products. And such a layout will ensure ‘green convention’ – pulling cooler
air from the green spaces into the warmer built areas – and bring down the
overall temperature of the city by two or three degrees, just one of the
many ways the city will be energy efficient and run on the principle of
recycling rather than consumption and waste.

At the same time, the city’s checkerboard design will work towards
diversity in jobs and social groups, as individuals in occupations
traditionally considered ‘rural’ or ‘urban’ will live side-by-side. This
will in turn contribute to entrepreneurial innovation and talent as new
climate, water and landscape-related jobs are created.

In a report on the Modi government’s Smart Cities project, Khosla writes:

“…the new Smart Cities [are] primarily the product of a global financial
imagination where mobile capital can describe its own deals and then
descend to feed off them before moving on… A smart city is a giant
corporation within which there are small-er corporations and within which
there are still smaller sub-corporations all of whom have invested in the
city and whose investments are at stake … For the Government of the day,
Smart cities are a symbol of a new future for India in which the freedom of
fulfilled aspirations will be guaranteed to those who migrate and get
employed and integrated into the prosperity and values of a new
industrialised future… where corporations provide finance, policy guidance
and political options. This is a global venture.”

How will Naidu’s ‘world-class’ capital city ‘for all’ avoid being this kind
of disaster?
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