Trupati, April 02: Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy on Friday announced a Rs.6,000- crore package for improving the basic infrastructure in his home district Chittoor which is celebrating its centenary year.
The package includes Rs.4,500 crore for drinking water, Rs.1,000 crore for modernisation of irrigation tanks and Rs.500 crore for strengthening the road network.
Package break-up
The Rs.4,500 crore package includes the prestigious Rs.1,400 crore scheme envisaged by Late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy for supplying Telugu Ganga water from Tirupati to Chittoor.
The project would provide drinking water to 74 villages spread over seven mandals in the district.
The 656 medium and 7,000 minor irrigation tanks would be repaired and linked at the earliest to put in place a dependable irrigation system, he said.
Three phases
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the three-day centenary celebrations here, Mr. Reddy said the scheme to provide drinking water would be taken up in three phases to meet the needs of people in Chittoor who are till now dependent only on rain or borewells.
The scheme would also cover the municipalities of Punganur, Palamaner, Srikalahasti, Puttur, Nagari, Madanapalle and Chittoor.
Mr. Reddy also announced Rs.100 crore for SHG bank linkage and renovation of Mandal Samakhya buildings at Rs.20 lakh each. Sympathising with the womenfolk who are forced to walk 2 km to get a pitcher of water in the arid Madanapalle division, he said they deserved a better deal in the form of assured drinking water in their village.
He wondered whether the political leaders from the district, including himself, had rendered justice to the public at all, all these years.
Highlighting the progress on the dairy front, he said the SHG women were collecting 2.20 lakh litres of milk everyday in the district and set an ambitious target to take it to 5 lakh litres by the end of next year.
Felicitated
Listing out the strides made by the district on the industrial and employment front, he referred to the Rs.6,000 crore power equipment manufacturing unit coming up at Mannavaram, ‘Sri City’ Special Economic Zone, Apollo’s rural hospital and Vellore-based CMC Hospital’s extension centre at Chittoor.
He later felicitated freedom fighters, political leaders and public representatives from the district.
–Agencies