Warangal Smart City tag

Warangal: A couple of years ago Warangal was in serious pursuit of achieving Smart City tag. And finally, the dream came true in 2016 summer, when Warangal made it to the cut in the second list of Smart Cities, a flagship programme of the Central government envisioned to recast country’s urban landscape.

The story to till this point is hunky-dory and what happened since then is something that the authorities have to answer with the proposed action plan of the Smart City still remaining on paper.

The awful state of the roads in the city reflects that neither Smart City benefits nor the special development funds sanctioned by the Chief Minister, K Chandrashekar Rao, for the Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation (GWMC) had made any difference. Even though the authorities have submitted detail project reports (DPRs) of seven themes and 20 projects worth around Rs 2,861 crore, the works on Smart City Mission are yet to be grounded.

It may be noted here that State government had formed a special purpose vehicle (SPV) christened as Greater Warangal Smart City Corporation Limited for the implementation of the Smart City Mission under the chairmanship of Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD) Secretary Navin Mittal with Director of Municipal Administration, Warangal district collector and Municipal Commissioner as the directors.

Speaking to The Hans India, Mayor Nannapuneni Narender said: “We are trying to speed up the things. As of now, we are waiting for the technical sanctions from the government. Efforts are on to complete the tender process of the works worth around Rs 250 crore by September 30.”

Referring to the delay, he said that with the GWMC staff’s focus on achieving the ODF tag, there was some delay. Further, he said that staff crunch in the GWMC has been affecting the progress of the works. Though the Warangal Municipal Corporation was turned into Greater by adding 42 villages under its ambit, there was no increase in the workforce, he added.

Advocating the need for forming a Smart City Advisory Forum represented by civil societies, the Forum for Better Warangal president Pulluru Sudhakar said that it’s time for the authorities to speed up the works. He also urged the government to entrust the works to reputed firms instead of local municipal contractors.

Meanwhile, the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister, K T Rama Rao, reportedly expressed his dissatisfaction over the slow pace of developmental works in Warangal during a meeting in Hyderabad on Monday. The Minister, who along with Deputy Chief Minister K Srihari, discussed at length with the Mayor N Narender, KUDA Chairman Marri Yadava Reddy, legislators of the region – D Vinay Bhaskar, Challa Dharma Reddy and A Ramesh.

According to a tentative plan, KTR will ground the works of Outer Ring Road (ORR) next week besides holding a review meeting of the developmental works in Warangal city. It’s also learnt that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will lay the foundation stone for the Textile Park in the first week of September.