Vijayawada: The New Year will see another urban development body being set up to carry out the vision-related and smart city concepts for the upcoming capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Amaravati Planning Design Research Institute (APDRI) will be another institute, apart from the existing Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA), and Amaravati Development Corporation (ADC) to work in this field.
The document prepared by consulting agency Dahlberg for the establishment of this institute identified four major needs of the capital city, that the APDRI will serve. The proposed institute will be tasked to build capacity within the state government in a 20-year time frame. It will ensure that key principles of the vision are followed to the last detail. The APDRI will collaborate with various international organisations, work across internal departments, and with external stakeholders, to realise the goals and vision, and monitor progress of the Amaravati vision. In this process, the institute will take continuous feedback from citizens, co-design with the concerned government agency and export partners, and engage with universities/businesses/start-ups.
The APDRI will be like an urban lab (planning infrastructure lab), along with people and economy lab, and data and governance lab. These labs will work as interlinking agencies between the private, and public sectors, and the people.
An advisory committee will be set up for these labs for technical inputs, and a new commissioner will be appointed to provide administrative sanctions. There will be a board of directors, with APCRDA commissioner as the chairman, and a chief executive officer (CEO) from the private sector. The chief minister will chair the institute meetings, and other state government departments will enter into memorandum of understating (MoU) with the institute. Other than this, the institute will also have subject matter experts on urban planning, infrastructure, economic development, information systems, and others, along with some project officers.
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