With the need to improve its existing infrastructure and provide more facilities for the residents, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation is scouting for lands to meet future requirements. As part of this initiative, VMC officials visited Suravaram village in Agiripalli mandal of Nuzvid division on Tuesday and inspected degraded and barren forest lands.
Post bifurcation, there is lot of pressure on VMC to develop its infrastructure, especially domestic requirements like garbage dumping yard, vehicles depot, water storage tanks and others. But given the land scarcity in the city, VMC officials are scouting for land in the 25 km radius from the corporation limits.
Under the Urban Development Project, VMC requires lot of land to meet the infrastructure requirements of a capital city and the existing infrastructure would not be sufficient.
Hence, efforts were being made to identify degraded, barren forest lands around the city to make best use of such lands for city needs, explained VMC Commissioner G. Veerapandian.
There are many pockets of degraded and barren forest lands, spreading over 100 to 200 acres bits.
Such lands can be utilised for different purposes like developing nurseries, which help in the beautification of the city. There were few other such plans but much will depend on the land sanctioned for the corporation and such inspections will be continued in the coming days, he explained.
Special meet
Meanwhile, Mayor Koneru Sridhar conducted a special meeting with different experts, including a private company on enhancing the solar power utility in the city. During the meeting, experts suggested that if the existing streetlights and water pumpsets used by the corporation were replaced by solar ones, it would help in reducing the power bills by 50 per cent.
Addressing on the occasion, Mr. Sridhar said the Corporation would strive for utilising solar power for its needs and would take up different measures towards usage of eco-friendly resources, said a press release.
