Amravati – An Innovative Land Pooling Strategy used in Planning a Capital City

This paper delves into the planning and development of Amaravati, the greenfield capital city of Andhra Pradesh, through the use of land pooling strategy (LPS. Land Pooling Strategy (LPS) is used in many countries to reconfigure land parcels after pooling contiguous lands and servicing areas with basic infrastructure to achieve a well-coordinated, planned development. There are several variants of LPS. This voluntary tool of LPS used in Amaravati is notable for its unprecedented size, but also presents areas of concerns. The article examines the details of the land pooling policy (Land Readjustment), including its implementation and impact. The paper highlights the positive social benefits of the LPS (such as access to amenities and services, property value gains, limited displacement, limited to no use of eminent domain), which have helped build the initial public support. However, it also criticizes the corruption in the LPS, and notes notes issues with coercion, illegal land grabbing, speculation, and caste influence that undermined the voluntary participation goal. The paper specifically focuses on how the new city was planned and developed using the LPS. While the LPS was initially intended to be democratic and equitable, expected to benefit all citizens, in this paper we argue that it has primarily benefited wealthy landowners with ties to specific group -- the Kamma Caste. Nevertheless, the LPS has been successful in acquiring over 33,000 acres from participating landowners, and property values have increased several folds of the initial amount. Participating landowners were returned up to 30 percent of their original land parcel, which the government of Andhra Pradesh had significantly improved.Additionally, the paper notes that Amaravati is being built on agricultural land in a region that was recommended not to be developed, with its proposed location in the Visakhapatnam-Guntur district remaining a topic of debate, even reaching the Supreme Court in 2023. At large, this paper is a critical review of innovative LPS as used in planning the Greenfield capital city of Andhra Pradesh, and synthesis different ideas and views of the LPS in its current state. In this paper, scholarly literature on land pooling, land readjustment, and official documents and plans are reviewed as part of the methodology. The importance of this article is evident due to the international focus of a planning strategy not commonly seen in the United States, although interestingly, the Washington DC was planned using a similar land pooling mechanism. By sharing this research exposing active planners and American planning students to new planning techniques, this article furthers inclusivity and diversity awareness and can lead to new and innovative planning practices within the United States.