Anna canteens to come up in nagar panchayats too

Vijayawada: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had agreed in principle to extend Anna canteens service in Grade III municipalities and nagar panchayats also and asked the municipal administration department to prepare details for implementation. 

Minister for municipal administration and urban development P Narayana disclosed this during a review of the developmental works undertaken in municipalities, Grade III and nagar panchayats with the chairpersons and commissioners here on Tuesday.

Addressing media later, the minister said that most of the 110 municipalities in the state have very meagre revenue of less than Rs 1 crore. The 45 civic bodies, including 24 nagar panchayats and 21 Grade III municipalities in the Amaravati capital region have no proper infrastructure.

“An amount of Rs 12,500 crore is needed to provide infrastructure to all these 45 civic bodies,” he said and added that the Chief Minister had instructed these civic bodies to approach banks for loans to develop infrastructure and the government would give counter-guarantee to the loans.

In addition, many of the civic bodies are facing the drinking water problem which would be tackled, the minister said. Narayana said that the budget allocation for SC/ST Sub-Plan has been enhanced to Rs 700 crore from the existing Rs 350 crore which would help the civic bodies to develop SC and ST colonies.

The construction of Anna canteens would be completed in four months in the civic bodies with more than 50,000 population, the minister said. Referring to the allegation of tax hikes in the state, he said that the property tax has not been increased for the last four years after TDP came to power.

“It is not true that the government is burdening the common man with more taxes,” he added. In connection with the urban housing, the minister said that the construction of five lakh houses would be completed by March 2019.

He flayed a section of politicians for objecting to the quality construction of houses to the poor. “Do they think that the poor people do not deserve quality houses with granite flooring and tiles in the bathrooms?,” he wondered.

He came down heavily on the main opposition party YSRCP  for calling a bandh in the state when actually they had to fight the Centre to achieve Special Category Status. “Bandhs are detrimental to the progress of people and the state would too suffer financial loss,” he pointed out.