Singapore firms Jurong International and Surbana International Consultants, the consortium appointed as master planner for the new capital city of India’s Andhra Pradesh, said the project is on track and is confident of completing it within six months.
In fact, planning team members will soon be in India to verify and collect ground information.
Notably, the Singapore consortium has been tasked to come up with a master plan for the city as well as its surroundings. The project will cover an area about 10 times the size of Singapore, in the Vijayawada-Guntar region in southern India.
The first phase of the project involves understanding the aspirations of locals for the new city and will include speaking with officials as well as the general population on the ground.
“Then we will be moving on to the second stage of planning – the 220 square kilometres of the capital city region,” said Dr Uma Maheswaran, senior vice president of sustainable urban solutions at Jurong Consultants.
“Now that is where the economic spine, and hence the industrial positioning, is going to become very critical. We need to understand what type of industries and where these are going to be located and how much of each of these, the quantum and in what magnitude is going to come into place.”
While Andra Pradesh officials have expressed their desire in tapping Japanese expertise in the city’s actual construction, there will still be opportunities for Singapore companies.
Muneerah Bee, Senior Journalist at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact her about this or other stories email muneerah@propertyguru.com.sg
