Municipal and Urban Development Minister Dr P. Narayana said that the government is taking steps to provide 100 percent safe drinking water in the municipalities of the state. He said that the funds due to the center have been stopped midway due to the negligence of the previous government. Minister Narayana and senior officials of the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department attended the review conducted by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on the municipal department.
After the review, Minister Narayana told the media that several funds have been brought from the center for development works in municipalities between 2014-19. He said that approval has been given for the release of Rs. 5800 crore from the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) and Rs. 3000 crore from Swachh Bharat. However, he deplored that the funds have been stopped midway as the previous government did not release the state share funds.
He said that the green signal has already been given for the Amrut scheme funds and tenders have been called for the drinking water pipelines. He said that if these works are completed, 85 percent of the houses will get direct drinking water. He said that the remaining drinking water pipelines and drainage pipelines will be completed with Rs. 5350 crore from AIIB. He said that CM Chandrababu has directed the Finance Department to provide the state’s share in relation to these funds.
Dr Narayana said that the STPs to release the treated water into the drainage will also be completed by 2029. He said that 8,000 tons of solid waste are generated in the state every day and steps are being taken to generate electricity from them. He said that it has been decided to set up ten plants to generate electricity from garbage in the state, and currently only two plants have become available in Guntur and Visakhapatnam.
The Minister said that if all these plants become available, 7500 tons of garbage will be converted into electricity every day and another 500 tons of garbage will be managed in various forms. He said that 85 lakh metric tons of legacy waste left behind by the previous government will be completely removed by October 2.
He said that Rs. 225 crore has been allocated for the purchase of compactors and sweeping machines for sanitation management in municipalities. He said that while work was started for the construction of 5 lakh TIDCO houses between 2014-19… the previous government reduced them to 2.60 lakh. He said that a decision will be taken after discussing the strike of engineering outsourcing workers in municipalities in a cabinet sub-committee.
