Vijayawada: RK Puram cleanest colony in city

Vijayawada: Ramakrishna Puram is one of the cleanest colonies in Vijayawada Central constituency with good infrastructure facilities like CC roads, drainage network and greenery. Around 5,000 people live in the colony.

The RK Puram was formed over 30 years ago and in the initial days, the residents had faced several hardships for a long time as some of the houses would be submerged in flood water overflowing from Budameru drain during every rainy season. However, the problem was solved to a larger extent with the Budameru diversion channel, which diverted the water to Krishna river near Ibrahimpatnam.

During the last 10 years, the residents of Ramakrishna Puram are living comfortably with more than 80 per cent of the colony area having good infrastructure facilities.

Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) is fulfilling its duties and collecting garbage every day from the colony to keep it clean.

K Narayana, a local resident in Koduru Raju gari street, said the colony residents have all kinds of facilities and VMC is also taking steps to keep the colony clean. There was mosquito problem a long time ago but now there is not much mosquito menace, he added.

RK Puram looks like a big park as the colony residents have planted several plants.

G Durgarao, who runs a barber shop adjacent to the flyover in Ramakrishna Puram, said traders and other people living along the flyover suffer from noise and air pollution as large number of vehicles would pass on the road from morning to night. Except for air and noise pollution problems, they don't have any other problem in the colony, he added.

Flyover, constructed 20 years ago, has changed the colony image and the residents have good transportation facility with APSRTC operating buses to various parts of the city. Several hundred buses pass via Ramakrishna Puram colony.

Good road connectivity and clean environment have shoot up the land rates in Ramakrishna Puram over the past 10 years. There is no drinking water problem as water supply will be done twice a day. All these factors contributed to the high demand for the rented houses in the colony till Covid pandemic started in March 2020.

Now, getting a rented house in Ramakrishna Puram is not difficult since many families migrated to their native places after Covid struck last year.

On the other hand, commercial activity increased in the colony with sizeable number of shops coming up and providing livelihood to traders, self-employed men and women, who runs kiosks to support the family.

There is only one problem the colony residents face is traffic congestion near Budameru bridge in morning hours. This bridge connects Ramakrishna Puram and Mutyalampadu. The existing flyover is not enough and there is a need to construct one more flyover, said CPM leader Chigurupati Baburao. He said the traffic problem would increase further with growing population and underlined the need for construction of a second flyover connecting Ramakrishna Puram and Ajit Singh Nagar colony over railway tracks.

Apart from this, the residents living close to Budameru suffer from stink and mosquito menace. Many houses were constructed in the encroached lands many years ago. The officials are also facing difficulty in evicting the families from the encroached areas, particularly Budameru bund.