Andhra State(New) is doing great and is on the right path after bifurcation.

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ANDHRA PRADESH AFTER BIFURCATION-2014
Even after the bifurcation was done in a hasty and haphazard manner
by the Congress, Andhra Pradesh, with the lack of any basic infrastructure
and resources, had to face initial hiccups.
Working at the Chief Minister’s Office, we didn’t have an office to
begin with. Everything literally had to begin from scratch. We sat in
meetings amid noises of hammering and drilling, including the Chief
Minister. So, that was the stage we began from.
However, it is not that we are going down. Definitely, the bifurcation
has proved to be difficult because of being a capital-less state. However,
the beginning has been great and progress is being made in all sectors.
Let me answers this in a few points:
POWER SURPLUS: Power situation was dire when N. C Naidu took over
as the CM. We started off with a power-deficit of 22 million units (MU) per
day in June 2014. Within 100 days, the government had achieved the
“zero- power cuts” milestone. And, now it is a power-surplus state. On the
other hand, this is also a state with the largest solar park in the country.
Therefore, even renewable energy capacity is increasing in the state.
(What this basically means for a state is, if power/energy needs are met,
agriculture fields can be provided with power, industries will be interested to
invest, households will not have blackouts. This is a basic need that needs
to be met by any state. And, AP Govt is focussing on that.)

2. 2
IRRIGATION FOCUS: Given that AP always is hit by a severe drought and
is dependent on agriculture, the government chose to focus on ensuring
that the irrigation infrastructure is well-established. Hence, the Polavaram
Project work was initiated and is going on in full speed. (Video)
Given that Polavaram project would take time, the government initiated and
completed the Pattiseema Lift Irrigation project to utilise the water that is
draining into the sea. (Video)
INDUSTRY: While Ease of Doing Business is good, the government is
focussing on all sectors such as manufacturing, electronics, IT, agro-
processing, textile, etc. For instance: Sri City has Foxconn, iSuzu,
Mitsubishi, etc which is a manufacturing zone.
ELECTRONICS: Three domestic mobile device makers — Micromax
Informatics Ltd, Karbonn Mobile India Pvt. Ltd and Celkon Impex Pvt. Ltd
— have come together to set up the country’s first mobile phone
manufacturing hub at Tirupati.
FINTECH: With a focus on being the first state in providing talent for
cybersecurity skills, AP is focussing on developing Vizag into FinTech hub.
The companies are choosing engineering colleges and training students in
the curriculum on real used cases so that they could hire them once they
have finished their course.
AGRO-PROCESSING AND AGRI-BUSINESS: Agro-processing Parks in
Kurnool district, Anantapur and other places are being set up. Walmart and
others players are working in procuring produce directly from farmers in

3. 3
Godavari districts. This is enabling farmers to directly quote their price for
their produce rather than having middlemen do it for them.
AMARAVATI: Fosters + Partners have submitted the final designs which
have been approved by the government and they will go ahead with the
government buildings in the initial phases. (While this is a work in progress,
expecting things to happen overnight is plain foolish).
SECRETARIAT: The Government now has a Secretariat in Velagapudi
which was built in a record time of 197 days. This is a record because
everyone who started off in 2014, without an office space to work with,
know its importance. (Video)
And, much more…..this is progress. And, Andhra Pradesh is doing great
and is on the right path after bifurcation.
It’s people need to understand and be patient because everything is being
done from scratch. So, expectations are high but they need to be realistic.
Is the Indian state Andhra Pradesh bankrupt?
Was the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh fair?
What is the current position of Andhra Pradesh economy after bifurcation?
How is Andhra Pradesh developing after bifurcation?
Is Andhra Pradesh doomed?
AP state bifurcation was primarily a result of political unrest and political
demand, unfortunately some of it still seem to carry over post bifurcation.

4. 4
Whether this bifurcation leads to focused effort in both region for economic
and social growth is to measure in due course, unfortunately some of the
initial steps seem to be erroneous due to political meddling.
The residual AP state and newly formed govt. should have leveraged the
10 year common capital and its infrastructure to full extent, while the
permanent administrative infra gets completed in new capital region in that
time frame. Instead the govt. choose to move in a hurry, due to what is
popularly believed as wrong political move in a tussle with TG govt./ ruling
party, resulting in thousands of crore for temporary structures, extra
incentive to employees besides loosing rights over Hyderabad infra for
what its worth!
AP Govt. seem to leverage the new reforms and initiatives by govt. of India
in power sector, to get to power sufficiency.
IRRIGATION - The decision on Pattiseema is with a very short term goal,
while it seem to accelerate irrigation water supply to some areas by couple
of years, it came with a cost which includes financial burden and lost focus
on polavaram, which to me is much bigger cost. Polavaram on the other
hand seem mis -managed , with out the required focus, oversight and
discipline ( financial or otherwise) resulting in huge delay, cost escalation
by multiple times and hence friction with center , resulting in blame game. A
project cost escalation from ~16000 crore to ~56000 cr is huge burden on
exchecker no matter who pays for it( ultimately its a burden on tax payer
and huge opportunity cost to do other things). A state with revenue deficit
and much more projects in need should have been more watchful and

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descipline with its ongoing projects instead of letting it loose and blaming
others for not giving “unconditional” support.
AMARAVATI / Capital region project - This is perhaps a very ambitious
project with a huge risk of failure without many check points. Cities,
urbanization and related economic powers grows organically in general and
trying fast forward such a process with minimal of resources is not only
ambitious but very risky. For any pragmatic person like me, this approach
seem not so viable, should have been more of incremental project instead.
INDUSTRIALIZATION: While there seem some effort from govt. towards
this, but much of it seem on proposal stage. Perhaps relative prioritization
and focus with in various sectors should be reviewed as its no longer easy
to get IT sector based growth out there though we keep hearing lot of noise
around that.
To a neutral observer, the current situation leaves with a lot of asking,
primarily due to misplaced focus on the part of the govt. While AP continue
to remain a well-placed state in terms of per capita, education and social
indexes, a lot of focused effort seem to be need of hour to improve
industrialization, employment generation !
One important consideration that I did not get to mention in my answer
above is - the skillset required by political leadership in the Federal
structure and new age politics. I feel this is the biggest weakness of the
newly formed state( with out comparing with any other state though). Like
in Corporate, the need of hour is some one who is willing to co-opt with
center, willing to share the political capital and dividends and there by

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getting the required support to do the all-round development of the state
and willing to lead from the front for the initiative of corruption free
administration at least at the top.
The approach of political leadership in the state is to demand supply of
resources from center without any audit or check points, take full credit (
and hence political capital) of all center sponsored schemes but blame
center for every minute delay due to administrative check points&
compliance needs, sought of look for all gain without any pain approach.
This will never work in Federal structure. We see many such examples in
corporate where such leaders of groups, who put entire blame on executive
leadership but try take all credit for success/good things, failing to make an
impact and doing overall bad for the employees of such groups. The real
loss is for those employees in such groups. Similarly here, the loss is for
the people of state, who typical should understand these dynamics.
Arun Baliga
Answered Jan 21, 2018
My opinion, it’s too early to measure how the 2 states are after bifurcation.
A major contributing factor for the growth of united AP and Hyderabad in
particular is that it sent 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha, 3rd after UP and
Maharashtra. As a result political weight was high in central governments
whenever like parties ruled at both centre and state (which was often the
case since usually AP had the same party or ally ruling as the one at the
centre), leading to significant projects being sanctioned. These changes
after the division have given Andhra and Telangana now 25 and 17 seats

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respectively, so way down the power chart. It is expected over the next
decades, other states like TN (39 seats), Karnataka (28 seats) would be
higher on Central priorities and this would be detrimental to these new
states, an expected side effect of not being united.
Santosh Singh, Keen follower of Indian Politics
Answered Sep 7, 2015
Atal Bihari Vajpayee Govt. Split 3 states in its tenure. There wasn't a single
word of protest and all political parties, people and masses were aligned. It
happened in year 2000.
UPA government made a mess of AP division. AP division is perfect
example of how a division shouldn't be carried out. I guess BJP supported
because it supports concept of small states.
AP division is in execution mess. The UPA hurriedly did to gain politically.
It could be possible that this division could lead to lose-lose, due to
mismanagement. I felt it can give a significant edge to Telangana, given the
head start of Hyderabad, and most of the Andhraites investing heavily into
Hyderabad. The principal opponents were Andhraites for this division,
hence.
Given that, How can AP restore to a progressive/developed state? By
following model of entrepreneurship and rebuilding from near scratch over
2 decades. Its not an easy task for AP.

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The points in favor of AP
1) Significantly smaller and hence provide a chance for better governance
and focus.
2) Naidu's proven administrative and Development track
INDUSTRY: This is something that doesn't change overnight. Still,
Telangana government hasn't seen enough to comfortably say that the lost
business due to the decade long strife in the capital city is reversing the
trend. In AP too, except for the Hero Moto Corp.s plant no rebirth of
industry is seen yet! Both the governments are trying hard to get the
investments by easier policies and getting commitment through MOUs, but
not much on ground yet. Too early to say though.
EMPLOYMENT: As it looked and the word that was around, the number of
jobs would almost double. Alas, not so in either state. The departments are
not sufficiently clearly divided. This and due to many other reasons, enough
recruitment is not done yet. Vacancies, they were always there, even in the
united state.
EDUCATION: The recently concluded EAMCET is a testament to the state
of affairs. non-cooperative attitude of the governments has led to the
students writing two tests, and even give tests far from the current
location.(10 centers in Telangana for AP's entrance test, 0 (zero) centers in
AP for Telangana's entrance test. The new IIM and IIT are a national
resource and the push they give to the local industry and society are over a
very long term.

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Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014
The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, popularly known as the
Telangana Act is an Act of Indian Parliament that bifurcated the state of
Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and the residuary Andhra Pradesh
state,[1] due to the Telangana movement.
The Act defined the boundaries of the two states, determined how the
assets and liabilities were to be divided, and laid out the status of
Hyderabad as the permanent capital of new Telangana state and
temporary capital of the Andhra Pradesh state.[2][3]
An earlier version of the bill, Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2013,
was rejected by the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly on 30 January
2014.[4]
The 2014 bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on 18 February 2014 and in the
Rajya Sabha on 20 February 2014.[5] The bill was attested by the
President of India, Pranab Mukherjee on 1 March 2014 and published in
the official Gazette on 2 June 2014 which is also the 'appointed day'
according to the act.[6]
The new states were created on 2 June 2014. [7]
Legislative history
The Union Cabinet formed a Group of Ministers (GoM) committee in
August 2013 led by the Union Home Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde to look
into the suitability of a division of Andhra Pradesh.[8] The members

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included the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, Health Minister Ghulam
Nabi Azad, Petroleum Minister & Natural Gas Minister Veerappa Moily,
Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh and minister of state in
PMO Narayanaswamy.[9] It also took the Srikrishna committee on
Telangana into account.
A duly validated no-confidence motion against the Congress government
was submitted to the speaker of the house Meira Kumari by Congress MPs
from Andhra Pradesh making the sitting government a minority
government. Long held parliamentary procedure that required immediate
consideration of no-confidence motions intended to prevent illegitimate
governments from passing laws was ignored by the speaker. Amidst a lot
of protest in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Parliament of India), the
bill was introduced by the speaker Meira Kumar at 12:00 pm on 13
February 2014.[10] During this time, there was a lot of shouting of slogans
and disruption of proceedings by the Seemandhra (non-Telangana) MPs in
the parliament who were determined to stop the bill. The Indian National
Congress party MP's attacked the anti-Telangana protestors, and the MP
Lagadapati Rajagopal used pepper spray in the parliament. Later he said
he was attacked by some Congress MPs from other states and had to use
it in self-defense. The parliament was then adjourned at 12:05 pm to 02:00
pm.[11]
The leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said she did
not know if the bill was introduced.[12] On 18 February 2014, the
Telangana Bill was passed by the Voice Vote in the Lok Sabha with
support from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while the live telecast of the
House was cut off and the doors and galleries were sealed.[13][14][15] The

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Seemandhra leaders accused the United Progressive Alliance government
of having taken it up for electoral gains and said it was a "black day" for the
Indian parliament.[16]
On 20 February, the Telangana bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha (the
higher house of parliament) with support from the BJP. MPs from various
parties asked for division[clarification needed] but it was rejected by the
speaker. Finally, the bill was passed by a voice vote.[17][18]
The bill received the assent of the President and published in the Gazette
on 1 March 2014.[19] The new State came into effect "from the date set by
the central government also known as appointed date." It became the 29th
state of India.

12. 12
Ten districts of A P have become India's 29th state Telangana.
The new A P people here believe they are getting a raw deal in the split.
"There is no capital, no infrastructure, no institutions in Seemandhra,"
Chandrababu Naidu, chief of the Telugu Desam Party, said last week. He
was today sworn in as the new chief minister of new Andhra Pradesh.
Seemandhra region's discontent is that under the bifurcation, it will share
capital Hyderabad with Telangana for 10 years. It has to pick its own
capital. Hyderabad, a gleaming IT hub, has 80-90 per cent of jobs.
With an area of roughly 1.6 lakh square kilometres and a population of over
five crore, A P will be a larger state than Telangana. It gets to keep the port
city of Visakhapatnam and Tirupati, the richest temple town in India.
New Delhi: Ten districts of Andhra Pradesh have been carved out to
create India's 29th state Telangana. The new Andhra Pradesh is made up
of the Seemandhra regions which bitterly opposed the bifurcation.
Here are 10 facts about the new Andhra Pradesh:
The people here believe they are getting a raw deal in the split. "There is
no capital, no infrastructure, no institutions in Seemandhra,"
Chandrababu Naidu, chief of the Telugu Desam Party, said last week
after seeking central help for the state. He was today sworn in as the
new chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, its first after the state was
bifurcated for the creation of Telangana.
At the core of the Seemandhra region's discontent is that under the
bifurcation, it will share capital Hyderabad with Telangana for 10

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years, but will eventually have to pick its own capital. Hyderabad, a
gleaming IT hub, has 80-90 per cent of jobs.
With an area of roughly 1.6 lakh square kilometres and a population of
over five crore, Andhra Pradesh will be a larger state than Telangana.
It gets to keep the port city of Visakhapatnam and Tirupati, the richest
temple town in India.
Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Ongole, Kurnool, Rajahmundry
and Tirupati are some of the cities in running to be the capital of
Andhra Pradesh after 10 years. Towns like Donakonda and
Mangalagiri have also been mentioned.
In the assembly elections held along with the general elections, the
people of Seemandhra taught the Congress a lesson for pushing to
create Telangana. The TDP-BJP alliance won 106 of the 175
assembly seats; the Congress, which has ruled for over four decades
in the 57-year-long existence of Andhra Pradesh, could not win a
single seat.
Mr. Naidu today took oath as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. The
swearing-in ceremony was held in Mangalagiri, situated between
Vijayawada and Guntur districts.
When the Congress-led Centre had announced special category status
for Seemandhra for five years, the BJP, then in opposition, had
demanded that the period be extended to 10 years. When Mr Naidu
met Mr Modi recently, he reportedly sought that the promise be kept.

14. 14
"Mr. Modi and the finance minister (Arun Jaitley) promised to help
build the state," Mr. Naidu said.
Special category states get financial aid from the Centre configured in a
manner that 90 per cent of it is deemed as grant, and the remaining
10 per cent is considered a loan. Special category states also get
preferential treatment from the Finance Commission in terms of
devolution of central tax revenues.
Among the development incentives that have been offered to the new
Andhra Pradesh in the AP Reorganisation Bill 2014, are four major
universities, a super specialty hospital-cum-teaching facility along the
lines of the All India Institute of Medical Science, an Indian Institute of
Management and an Indian Institute of Technology.
One major problem that Mr. Naidu's government might not inherit is the
problem of Naxalism.While Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam have
reported incidents of left-wing extremism in the past, eight of the ten
districts worst hit by Naxalism in Andhra Pradesh will become part of
Telangana after bifurcation.
Amaravathi, the capital for Andhra Pradesh after bifurcation, is to be
a fabulous riverfront city modelled on Singapore. But quite a few
hurdles loom ahead.

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The historical region of Amaravathi, chosen to be the capital city of the new
Andhra Pradesh, resembles the terrain of 1960s Singapore. But the
attempt is to replicate Amaravati as Singapore in the 21st century, a
commercial island city-state on the Krishna riverfront. But this will be a
mammoth task, given the innumerable hurdles that lie in wait for Andhra
Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.
The bifurcation of united Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and residual
Andhra during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance regime left
many scars on Andhra Pradesh. The split State has a Rs. 17,000 crore

16. 16
budget deficit, with no capital city to call its own. Though the State
machinery has been allowed to function from Hyderabad for 10 years after
bifurcation, several departments have had to suffer step-motherly treatment
in the new Telangana regime under its first Chief Minister K.
Chandrasekhara Rao.
The bifurcation, which took place ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls,
deeply hurt Telugu pride, but political parties across the spectrum, in their
constant attempts to be politically correct, have not revealed these wounds.
The loss of Hyderabad, or Cyberabad as it was fondly called, in which
Andhra Pradesh has high stakes, was another blow. It was especially
painful for Mr. Naidu, whose efforts to conceive of and build Hyderabad into
a world-class cyber city are well known.
While cash-rich Telangana is in celebratory mode on its first birthday, Mr.
Naidu has resolved to have no festivities. Instead, there is going to be a
Nava Nirmana Deeksha or focus on the building of a new State.
Mr. Naidu apparently wants to turn this adversity into an opportunity by
planning a world-class capital on the banks of the river Krishna. About
7,068 sq. km have been earmarked for the capital region, of which 225 sq.
km have been dedicated to Amaravathi, the capital city. In the words of Mr.
Naidu, it will not just be “an administrative capital but an economic driver, a
people’s capital, and an affordable city”.
Amaravathi, meaning ‘abode of the immortal’, is a small town in Guntur
district, and was specifically chosen by Mr. Naidu to leverage on its rich
2,000-year-old heritage. It was the capital of the Satavahana kings between

17. 17
the 2nd and 3rd century BCE — they ruled most of the country from here
— and also an important region for Buddhism.
Mr. Naidu wants the new capital to be Andhra Pradesh’s pride. “After the
bifurcation, he wanted to develop Amaravathi into a world class city and a
huge metropolis near Visakhapatnam, as a fitting counter [to Telangana],”
said a leader closely associated with the Chief Minister.
The people’s response to the government’s intended pooling of around
33,000 acres needed for the capital has been positive, according to
ministers and officials. The government was able to successfully convince
farmers and pool almost half of the land along with ownership rights. The
offer of annuity and developed residential and commercial land has been
received well by several land owners.
“Consent letters [have been given] for 33,000 acres and [there has been]
agreement on half of the land. This can be termed as the first achievement,
first of its kind in the country. People are excited and showing tremendous
interest,” said Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority
Commissioner, N. Srikanth. That the Singapore government has kept its
word in submitting a master plan within the stipulated time, as per the
agreement, is another milestone according to the government. The
foundation stone will be laid today and several programmes are to follow in
the coming days.
Dissenting voices
However, all is not well — there are dissenting voices as well. The
opposition is questioning the logic behind using such a huge stretch of

18. 18
agricultural land for building the capital, as this land is one of the green
pastures of the State, and provides three kinds of crops. Questions have
been raised on the fate of landless labourers and tenant farmers in the
region. The whole exercise, the Opposition has said, is an attempt to
marginalise farmers and distribute land to corporate entities. Doubts have
been raised on the real intent of the government, with fingers pointed at
government attempts to arm-twist farmers on land acquisition.
Adding to the confusion, people from other regions such as coastal Andhra
and Rayalaseema, which had capital expectations, are growing impatient
with the new government’s excessive focus on the capital while ignoring
the rest of the State. The government’s lacklustre approach in demanding
special status category to Andhra Pradesh from its alliance partner, the
Bharatiya Janata Party, has also surprised many observers. While leaders
across party lines are busy making safe statements, the people have
launched protests, demanding special status. For instance, Guntur-based
Mamillapalli Sanjiva Rao braved the scorching sun and spent nearly 38
hours on a cell phone tower, threatening to commit suicide, to protest the
delay in declaring Andhra Pradesh’s special status. In another case, Sai
Krishna Kota, an assistant professor in Gudlavalleru Engineering College
near Vijayawada, went on hunger strike for the same cause.
While the government is busy joining the dots to clear key infrastructure
projects scheduled for completion by 2019, an appeal has been filed by
Vijayawada-based Pandalaneni Srimannarayana that the entire region
comes under Seismic Zone category-III and is therefore not fit for a capital.
“Not just the seismic activity, the earmarked area is black cotton soil which
is not suitable for 70-80 storied skyscrapers. That apart, the area is larger

19. 19
than that of the U.S. financial capital, New York. Is it necessary to build
[the] capital here at the cost of farmers’ livelihood? We have abundant
government land available elsewhere,” the appellant reasons.
Mr. Srimannarayana’s appeal is in the National Green Tribunal, and notices
have been issued to the Union of India, Government of Andhra Pradesh,
the Ministry of Forests and Environment, and the Capital Region
Development Authority (CRDA). The hearing is scheduled for July 27.
Where’s the money?
There is also concern over raising the funds to build the vast city. This
could be another stumbling block for the government, which is currently
struggling to pay employee salaries, a fact that came to light in February. A
massive hike has been given to employees recently and is going to add to
the salary bill. The investment needed for the capital is about Rs. 4 lakh
crore, according to a rough estimate by the Chief Minister, but there is no
concrete plan in place thus far about how this amount is going to be raised.
The government has indicated that most of the projects will be taken up
through the public-private partnership mode. “These projects may not be
viable. The Central Viability Gap Funding (CVGF) is needed and it is mostly
unlikely in the present circumstances,” said a top official.
But an optimistic Mr. Naidu is pinning his hopes on global giants such as
the Japan External Trade Organisation, the Japan Bank for International
Co-operation, the Energy and Industrial Technology Development, the
Japan International Cooperation Agency, Singapore’s Tamasec Holdings,
and Chinese entities to fund and build the capital.

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Analysts are commenting about a lack of seriousness and a visible gap
between theory and practice in the development of a split Andhra Pradesh.
The obsession of the Chief Minister and the State departments with
Hyderabad, and the stiff resistance from employees to shift to Vijayawada,
the base capital, even a year after the bifurcation, citing a lack of facilities,
are only adding to the woes of the new State.
June 2, 2015
appaji.r@thehindu.co.in
This article erroneously referred to New York as the U.S. capital. It
should have been U.S. financial capital. The error has been
corrected.
"Investments are critical to economic growth, focused efforts are an
imperative to drive growth in chosen sectors of the economy and provide
convenience & comfort to the investing community. APInvest is the single
point of contact that facilitates investments in Andhra Pradesh. Welcome to
Andhra Pradesh.Get the APInvest advantage." The World Bank report on
Ease of Doing has ranked AP as 2nd. As per World Bank Report,
the state has been ranked with score of 70.12%
 Amaravathi foundation ceremony – Oct 22
nd
, 2015 @ Uddandarayunipalem village in Guntur
district
 Total area of the Andhra Pradesh capital region has been increased to 8352.69 sq.km from the
existing 7068.20 sq. km.
 Capital City Area – 375 sq.km