Elixir called development

What is development? Is the question answered simply in economic terms or are there sociological markers as well? Political leaders seem to swear by the word. In a recent interview, the Union minister for urban development, housing and urban poverty alleviation, Venkaiah Naidu, who is a vociferous propagator of the smart city concept, used the word at least thrice in every sentence. During her recent tour of North Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee called the movement of aircrafts at the Cooch Behar airport, “development”. At the same time, in Jayanti where she had put up, 30 trees were felled by the local administration to ensure her safe stay. So much for Banerjee’s government being for the people!

Andhra Pradesh CM, Chandra Babu Naidu is constructing a “Singapore-type” world class city called Amaravati on the banks of the river Krishna, which will be the state’s new capital. Already about 50,000 acres of fertile land have been acquired under a high sounding term, “land pooling”. Truth be told, Naidu is not building a capital but a city. He does not want Amaravati to be like other administrative capitals such as Canberra, Ottawa, Gandhinagar or Raipur, where tree-lined promenades are deserted after 5 pm. In his vision, Amaravati will answer the needs of the people of Andhra Pradesh who, having been dispossessed of Hyderabad, are in search of a grand expression for their identity. He wants a city that is an economic powerhouse where both international capital and local talent for enterprise combines to produce well-being for millions.

However, the place where Naidu has planned to fulfil his grand ambition consists of rich riverine farmland. As it exists today, the site has a beautiful pastoral ecosystem in which agriculture has snuggled itself cozily into the folds of the environment— a landscape of vegetable orchards, neem woods, thickly vegetated hills, narrow paths protected by a canopy of peepals and farmsteads with sparrows nesting in the awnings. Why would one want to turn such place into Singapore?

Now that the foundation stone has been laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the project is poised to move on to serious matters such as arranging finances for the construction and attracting investment to make the city viable. However, environmental concerns are likely to scare away international investors even if the Union government is supportive. Naidu’s purpose in the Amaravati project is not merely romantic. Although he is a farmer’s son, he has always believed that agriculture is not sufficient to accommodate the aspirations of the people, for which the state needs to provide at least 3, 00,000 jobs a year.  Therefore, urbanisation is the answer. Furthermore, he knows that land is the only resource at his disposal that can attract potential investors, who will not come for charity but to make a profit. In that sense Naidu and Banerjee seem to be cut from the same stone although they belong to different political dispensations.  

But acquiring vast swathes of agricultural lands along the banks of the Krishna are not the only anti-farmer or anti-environmental act Naidu has indulged in. To pacify the people of Rayalaseema who are demanding that Kurnool be announced as the new capital of Andhra, he has promised huge infrastructural “development” for Anantapur and a super expressway through the Nalla Malla reserve forest. As per one estimate, nearly 4 crore trees are going to be felled to make way for the capital and expressway combined.