Renewal of cities, where does Vijayawada stand?

Vijayawada, which is in the forefront in the race for capital, is way behind in extending essential services to citizens

July 13, 2014 12:31 pm | Updated 12:31 pm IST - VIJAYAWADA:

The NDA Government has focused on providing safe drinking water and sewerage management, usage of recycled water for organic farming, solid waste management and digital connectivity in cities and towns. But Vijayawada, which is in the forefront in the race for Andhra Pradesh’s capital is way behind in extending these services to its citizens.

The city generates about 500 tons of solid waste daily and the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) is adopting unscientific disposal practices. Solid waste is dumped at Jakkampudi, Ajithsingh Nagar and Pathapadu on the fringes.

Following complaints from residents, VMC mooted integrated municipal solid waste management system to generate power from solid waste last year and invited private companies for taking up the project. But for reasons best known to the authorities, the project is yet to take off, complains Tax Payers Association president V. Sambi Reddy.

Similarly, sewerage management is another challenge for the corporation. Many areas, especially in Circle I lack proper sewerage system and the sight of overflowing drains is regular phenomenon. Though the corporation laid underground pipelines, networking of these pipelines is still to be completed. In few areas, sewerage is discharged into the canals.

The Corporation planned to install Sewerage Treatment Plants (STP) at six different localities in the city but nothing concrete was being done on this front, says Mr. Reddy. Though sourcing drinking water is not an issue, supply is definitely a problem in few areas of the city. On the other hand, VMC authorities said efforts were on to address these issues.

“We have identified 18 acres of land for waste to power project and once the formalities are completed, the project would be launched in a year. Corporation will be collecting the solid waste and dumping at the private companies dump yard for scientific disposal and generation of power,” explains a senior official.

Likewise, six STPs are planned for the city, of these three will be put into operation within couple of months and the rest in six months. This apart, a detailed project report would be prepared and submitted to central government very shortly for securing funds, he added.

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