“We believed that work would continue but everything has stopped,” he says, anxiety writ large on his face. “We are trying to ask the government when the work will begin again. All of us are afraid about what will happen now. We have all willingly given our lands because we wanted a capital city here. But now we don’t know the status,” he says.

Surendra is only one of thousands of farmers who gave their land for pooling, in a first of its kind exercise in 2014-15. Farmers who pooled their land were promised an annuity from the government in lieu of the crop income they would otherwise have had. Apart from this, the state promised them developed plots of land, depending on the classification and area that each farmer had pooled.

Farmers with jareebu lands (loosely translated to wet lands) would get annuity of Rs 50,000 along with a developed residential plot of 1000 square yards and a commercial plot of 450 square yards.

Farmers with metta lands (loosely translated to dry lands) or uplands would get annuity of Rs 30,000 along with a developed residential plot of 1000 square yards and a commercial plot of 250 square yards.

This is for each acre pooled by the farmers.

Factored in is a cost escalation component to the annuity – since June this year, jareebu farmers have got Rs 75,000 per acre and upland farmers have got Rs 45,000 per acre. In the tenth year of construction of the capital city, jareebu farmers would get annuity of Rs one lakh while upland farmers would get Rs 75,000.

While all of this is taking place, the fate of Amaravati hangs in the balance, with new chief minister Jaganmohan Reddy choosing to remain tightlipped about his next move and disallowing work to go on.

His second in command, Municipal Administration and Urban Development minister Botsa Satyanarayana made a throwaway comment about “discussions” being “on” and referring to the Sivaramakrishnan Commission of 2014 that went into the issue of a new capital city for divided Andhra Pradesh, which further sent rumour mills into a tizzy.

“Plot allocation has taken place in the core area,” continues Surendra. “But speculation is going on and government has not said anything concrete so far,” he says.

Surendra’s worries are echoed even by farmers who have pledged their allegiance to the ruling YSR Congress. Thulluru mandal president of the party Bathula Kishore told The Lede that everyone pooled their land notwithstanding their political affiliations.

“We all wanted the capital here. I did not give my land because Chandrababu Naidu was the CM or Jagan was the CM. I gave it for the capital,” he says.