Andhra Pradesh's latest ask: Stand as ‘guarantor' to bring back Singapore to Amravati
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In a bid to bring back Singapore government and investors for Amaravati capital city project, N Chandrababu Naidu-led Andhra Pradesh government has sought the Centre's support in standing as an informal guarantor for the state.Naidu has revived his pet project of a new capital city at Amaravati and has been scouting for investments. He had recently led a high-level delegation to Singapore in end of July. According to sources, Singapore government wants an assurance from the Centre that Amravati capital project has its support.Government officials said this is a way to gauge that the project has the Centre's 'blessings'. Andhra Pradesh IT minister Nara Lokesh met external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Monday to seek the Centre's support. Sources said that if Singapore government comes back to the table, a tripartite agreement will be signed with Andhra government, Singapore government and World Bank as partners. A framework is being discussed to oversee this cooperation which will include officials of the two governments and may have Centre's representative. Speaking after the meeting with Jaishankar, Lokesh said, 'We are hopeful of bringing Singapore government and investors back to Amaravati capital city project. We are yet to finalise the contours of this cooperation. We have sought the Centre's support in pushing this initiative through.'In 2015, a joint venture between Andhra Pradesh government and Singapore Consortium was floated and was known as Amaravati Development Partners. The state Cabinet adopted Swiss Challenge procurement model in June 2015, which came under judicial scrutiny as Indian companies alleged that the process was tailored to favour the Singapore Consortium. As the state government started the process of land pooling to acquire land, the collaboration process lost considerable steam with senior officers incharge from Andhra Pradesh not even attending joint meetings. With YSRCP government under Jagan Mohan Reddy in power, the entire project was stalled. Singapore's reluctance to come back to the table for Amaravati 2.0 comes from the fact that government officials received a lot of flak back homefor this failed partnership. A study on Amaravati being a failed experiment was conducted by Singapore and is now presented as a case study.Naidu partnered with Singapore to bring the country's experience in city design, project management and urban governance to build Amaravati. The Singapore government's Urban Redevelopment Authority and Surbana Jurong prepared Amaravati's Master Plan, which is still being used for Amaravati 2.0.
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