The Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday issued orders formally notifying the name of its capital city, as “Amaravati”. The order comes three weeks after the state Cabinet headed by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, unanimously approved the name on April 1.

The name Amaravati is confined to only 122 square kms of the “capital city” area between Vijayawada and Guntur districts on the Krishna River bank. It does not include the entire 7,068 square kms capital region area.

The Government Order Ms No. 97 issued on Thursday by the municipal administration principal secretary, Giridhar Aramane states that the name Amaravati is being notified for the capital city area extending up to 122 sq kms.

This gives scope to the AP government to ultimately give in to the demand from party workers and a couple of senior ministers to name at least the capital region area after party founder president and former chief minister late N. T. Rama Rao.

“The government, after due consideration of history of the Telugu people and aspirations of the state population, hereby notifies that the capital city be named as ‘Amaravati’,” Mr Aramane said in the G.O.

Capital may have ‘China Town’

According to the master plan being prepared by the Singapore team, the AP capital Amaravati will have a “China Town”. The “China town”, akin to those in Singapore and other countries, will include Chinese institutions, restaurants and shopping centres.

AP government communication adviser Parakala Prabhakar revealed that as part of several initiatives to draw Chinese investments, AP has decided to set up the China Town in Amaravati.

The government is also working on the proposal to involve a Chinese firm that built 75 per cent of the “Three Gorges Dam” the world’s largest —  hydropower project —  to take part in the Polavaram dam construction, if the Centre gives its nod.

A China industrial township is on the anvil. “The location is not yet finalised. But there is a solid proposal to work on,” said Mr Prabhakar. Mr Prabhakar said, ?The Chinese are known for constructing huge projects at a quick pace. We are working on an idea to involve the firm that was involved in the Three Gorges Dam construction and it depends on the Centre. We want to focus on three areas regarding Chinese investments construction of dams, solar power and electronics manufacturing units.

The state government that has already introduced Japanese, now wants to introduce Chinese in universities in AP, including Andhra University in Vizag, Nagarjuna University in Guntur and SV University in Tirupati. A China desk has already been proposed to clear investments from Chinese companies speedily.

A China industrial township is on the anvil. The location is not yet finalised. But there is a solid proposal to work on, said Mr Prabhakar. He added that majority of the lands on the banks that stretch to around 10 lakh acres, is government owned.