The municipal administration and urban development department has accorded administrative sanction for ₹2,000-crore work in about 110 urban local bodies (ULBs) through the Telangana Urban Finance Infrastructure Development Corporation (TUFIDC) in a major infusion of capital for the first time.
This is besides the ₹2,000-crore civic works carried out during the 60-day lockdown in the twin cities when the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) was able to complete foundation of all flyovers, could lay 300 km of bitumen surfacing and about 30 km of cement roads.
An additional 27 stretches covering 44 km were taken up under the missing link roads project. All these works could otherwise have taken up to six months during the 60-day lockdown, according to the annual department report released by Minister for IT, Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA &UD) K. T. Rama Rao on Wednesday.
The report released in the presence of Municipal Administration Secretary Arvind Kumar and others claimed that the department had done yoeman’s service since the lockdown began as part of the COVID-19 response with personnel of entomology, sanitation, disaster relief, water supply and others working round the clock, "often putting themselves at risk to ensure basic services are maintained uninterrupted".
Free food was arranged for 1.25 lakh a day during lunch and 75,000 people had dinner from March 25 to date. A total of 284 on-site camps were maintained at construction sites for all the migrant workers before travel had been arranged to their native places.
The report stated that ‘out of box’ thinking led to taking up road and flyover works in a mission mode, making use of absence of traffic and taking up the civic works which otherwise could have taken six months. To improve public health, about 350 more urban health posts or 'basthi dawakhanas' are to be opened in total in addition to the existing 123 and the 45 opened recently. Works are also on for opening 3,000 public toilets with 500 toilets in each of the six zones.
Protected water supply too is to receive a boost with the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) building the 20 TMC (344 million gallons a day) capacity Keshavapuram reservoir so as to ensure water till 2040 by bringing water from Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme through the Kondapochamma Sagar.
Another water supply scheme for ₹725-crore project for Outer Ring Road (ORR) area covering 24 ULBs and 18 gram panchayats providing water supply to 2 lakh households was taken up. With regard to greenery, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) had developed green cover at a cost of ₹96.64 crore in 31 blocks on 5,614 hectares, of which 3,872.5 acres are within ORR.
The department claimed that 709 km of major roads in the capital was entrusted to six agencies for maintenance, of which 331 km was supposed to be laid in the first year itself and this prevented restoration of damaged roads on a ‘piecemeal basis’.