Seemandhra: Centre Appoints 5-Member Expert Panel to Select Capital

The Union government has constituted a five-member expert committee to select a suitable city or region to build the capital of Seemandhra state, the residual Andhra Pradesh, once Telangana is formed on 2 June.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has constituted the committee on 28 March under the leadership of former secretary of Urban Development Department, K Shivaramakrishnan. It is to submit its report of recommendations to the Centre before 31 August.

Nellore, Tirupati, Kurnool, Ongol, Vijayawada, Guntur, Amaravathi, Visakhapatnam and new a greenfield city are doing the rounds in media reports as the probable capital of Seemandhra. The multi-disciplinary committee will look into the possibility of making one of the above key cities or the new greenfield city as the capital of the new state.

KT Ravindran, Jagan Shah, Aromar Revi and Rathin Roy would be the other four members to assist Shivaramakrishnan in the task of selecting the capital city, according to media reports. These five members are experts in urban development and construction of cities. The committee is to study the challenges in selecting the capital for Seemandhra. 

The Centre, in a letter, said that the panel would find a suitable place for the new capital by taking all issues like connectivity to all regions of Seemandhra. The members of the panel will travel throughout the Seemandhra and study the cities and regions to identify the capital. One of the panel members said that the task is not only building a city but also the consultations on various issues that arise in identifying a region or city for the capital.

Shivaramakrishnan, who retired from IAS in 1992, joined the World Bank as a senior advisor in the urban management wing. Presently, he is working as honorary professor in Centre for Policy Research organisation.

Ravindran is the HOD of Urban Designing Department in School of Planning And Architecture in  Delhi. Shah is the Director of National Institute of Urban Affairs. Revi is the Director of Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS) in Bangalore, which is the first prospective national university for research and innovation to address the challenges of urbanization. Roy is the Director of National Institute of Public Finance and Policy Research. He has also worked as Regional Manager in UNDP.