Plan to build Singapore in India sends land prices soaring

New Delhi

A SHORT man with frayed clothes and hands made rough from long years of farming, K Subba Rao stands under the sun in his village in southern India, as the creases on his weathered face break into a sly grin. "I'm going to be a rich man," he says.

Amid banana plantations and cotton patches in Uddandarayunipalem, it seems like everyone's convinced they've hit the jackpot. Other farmers chime in with shouts of "Shopping Malls!", "Apartments!", "Jobs!" Their optimism is fuelled by a decision to split what was India's fifth-most-populous state of Andhra Pradesh last year. In the division, the state lost both its old provincial capital of Hyderabad and the lion's share of the economy.

So Andhra Pradesh needed a new capital. And Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu wants to build it around farmer Rao's banana t…