Work has begun on identifying where the executive capital zone in Visakhapatnam would be located. Biman Patel, Padma Shri and President of the CEPT University in Ahmedabad, that focuses on understanding, designing, planning, constructing and managing human habitats, visited Vizag last week, to take a look at the locations identified by the Andhra Pradesh government.
What’s the plan?
The main capital region will be located between Kailasagiri Hills and Bhogapuram. That will ensure the core capital area will be away from the heart of Vizag city and will have the Chennai-Kolkata National Highway on one side and the Bay of Bengal on the other.
The idea is to develop the capital around five hills including Bavikonda, Thotlakonda, Kambalakonda and the hills where Greyhounds anti-naxal strike force and Rama Naidu studios are located. Some of these hills come with restrictions on buildings and space so the challenge will be for architects to work around that.
It will be a greenfield project though not on the scale and lavish budget envisaged for Amaravati by former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu. The concrete plan for Vizag as capital is yet to be presented to chief minister Jaganmohan Reddy. The government wants to wait for the Bill on decentralisation of the capitals to be passed by the Legislature before starting formal work on Visakhapatnam.