Tadiparti, a beacon of hope for civic bodies

​Tadipatri (Anantapur): Tadipatri municipality with a population of 1.08 lakh has been ranked as the second best municipality in the country by Skotch’, an international agency. It has bagged the Skotch Gold Award-2016. The agency had identified the top 10 civic bodies out of the 100 municipalities it surveyed in the country based on parameters such as sanitation, open-defecation etc.

The town, which has a history of faction rivalries is today on a progressive mode, adopting civic standards of the developed world in many respects. Tadipatri is the only town in the district with an underground drainage system. It is also tackling the mosquito menace quite effectively.

The town's age-old conventional lighting has been replaced with LED lamps which had brought down power bills by 50 per cent. Clean and garbage free streets, beautiful parks, open-defecation free culture have resulted in the municipality being ranked the second best after Pune.

The civic office is the people's pride and resembles the building of a modern State Assembly. The civic body does not call for tenders from private parties to implement any development works, but undertakes the execution of works on its own. Anyone who throws papers, or garbage in public places is fined a minimum of Rs 500 to Rs 2,000.

The fear of fines always keeps public places clean. The town's most beautiful edifice is the glass house building standing tall in the town which people own it. The neat and clean town is a reflection of the progressive outlook of the people's representatives. No wonder the civic body is rated as the second best in the country after Pune Municipality. The small rustic town has many feathers on its cap.

MLA Prabhakar insists on cutting costs and so is the case with LED lighting. The project cost of LED bulbs was Rs 3.65 crore, but by designing the electrical poles himself, he brought down the project cost to Rs 1.65 crore. The MLA, who served also as municipal chairman, has a grip over the functioning of the civic body and personally monitors spending and comes up with innovative ideas to cut down work costs.

The town is clean and green. Market places and commercial complexes and particularly traders have to take responsibility for any garbage thrown. A trader Raghuram Reddy says that if a plant withers, the trader, who is closer to the plant location, is held responsible.

The punishment is closing the shop for a week. The trader himself has to replace the withered plant with a new one and take responsibility for watering the same. The town does not have garbage bins. Sanitation personnel collect garbage from homes as well as commercial establishments at an appointed time. At vegetable markets the market waste piled up in one place is collected by the sanitation staff every evening.

Every street is green rich and maintained by the residents under the supervision of the councillor concerned.Tadipatri municipality is now in the process of implementing a project with the help of German civic experts for setting up of a treatment plant for treating domestic drain water for reuse for industrial purpose up to 11 million litres per day.

Municipal commissioner S Siva Ramakrishna told The Hans India that the civic body is on the verge of setting up a 50 mw roof top solar power plant to meet all its town requirements. The project will be executed by SETWIN, a government agency.
Another prestigious project of the municipality is providing highly nutritious meal to 7,000 school children under the mid-day meal scheme.

Sparsha, an NGO, founded by the JC Brothers is also donating from its resources to give a rich vegetarian and non-vegetarian diet to children. Plastic ban is in vogue for over a decade and is the first to ban plastic in the State.MLA JC Prabhakar Reddy interacting with The Hans India revealed that another major solar project in 13,000 acres is in the pipeline on a mountain top. The corporation with 11 shopping complexes is getting a revenue of 1.50 crore annually. The civic body, which once did not even have funds to pay staff salaries, now has Rs 60 crore surplus budget every year.

The people of Tadipatri have given political life to us. They had sent JC Diwakar Reddy my brother to Assembly seven times and made him an MP and myself an MLA. In gratitude to people we have owned the town and funds paucity will never be an issue as we are reaching out to the people through the trust and whatever the people require we do it and quality is the byword in all our works,” Prabhakar.

The civic body has 28 vehicles donated by the trust, general public and local industries. It also has nearly 400 acres of lands as assets for future use. Tadipatri Municipality stands as a light house and beacon of hope for other civic bodies. The municipality boasts of a decent and modern centrally air-conditioned office with a corporate look. No civic body in Andhra and Telangana States, including Hyderabad, has such a sophisticated office with a modern look as the tiny Tadipathri town.