Parliament passed the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2026, on 2 April, when the Rajya Sabha approved it by voice vote a day after the Lok Sabha cleared it, giving Amaravati statutory status as the sole and permanent capital of Andhra Pradesh, according to All India Radio’s news site. The law ended a decade of uncertainty over the capital that began when the state was divided in 2014.
The bill amends the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, specifically Section 5. It designates Amaravati as the sole and permanent capital, and a new Explanation 2 in Section 5(2) clarifies that “Amaravati” includes all capital city areas notified under the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority Act, 2014. According to a report that summarised the bill’s provisions, the recognition takes retrospective effect from 2 June 2024, the end of the ten-year period during which Hyderabad was the common capital of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. That retrospective date was not in the AIR report, so it should be read as coming from the second summary.
The timeline is short. The Andhra Pradesh Assembly passed a resolution on 28 March 2026 asking for the amendment, and Parliament acted within a week. The state government had designated Amaravati as its capital location on 23 April 2016, but without a central law the status was open to dispute, which is the gap the amendment fills. The Telugu Desam Party-led government under N. Chandrababu Naidu has said that Amaravati will remain the state’s only capital.
The political reaction was warm. Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai called it “a historic moment for the state and the Telugu community worldwide” and said that the amendment ensures “legal clarity regarding the capital issue”. Union Minister K. Rammohan Naidu described the occasion as “deeply emotional” and said the law gives “long-awaited clarity to the state”. Chandrababu Naidu welcomed the unanimous passage of the bill in both Houses, according to AIR.
Construction is the next question. At a review at his camp office in Amaravati on 4 April 2026, Naidu was told that works worth Rs 57,821 crore were in progress across the capital, with major works expected to be completed by 2028, according to All India Radio. He asked officials to fix weekly and monthly targets and to complete work planned before the monsoon on time. Other coverage has questioned whether the 2028 timeline can be met, and IndiaX24 has not seen an independent assessment.
The law settles the legal question, but not the financial one. Building a capital city needs money from the state, from central support and from lenders, and the pace of work will decide whether Amaravati becomes a functioning capital within the promised period. Earlier this month, a technology claim about an Amaravati “quantum valley” was published by a promotional outlet, but IndiaX24 could not confirm it from an independent source and has not relied on it. We will report on progress reviews and on new funding announcements. The state has not yet published a combined account of funds received and spent, so the full cost remains an open question.
Featured image: A 3D model of the planned capital city, Amaravati, at the APCRDA office in Vijayawada (file photo, 2018). Photo by IM3847, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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