ATP gets new look with greenery, road dividers

Anantapur: The construction of road dividers and planting of greenery on the dividers has changed the face of Anantapur city, thanks to the initiatives of the Municipal Corporation.

Swarna Latha, a college lecturer, says the city had graduated from precarious civic conditions to a beautiful city with well-developed roads and excellent greenery today.

Many cosmopolitan clubs, high-profile eatery clubs and restaurants and the presence of hundreds of IT graduates everywhere is giving the city a cosmopolitan touch, she adds. Greenery on the road dividers has given added beauty apart from making all public walls picturesque with thought provoking pictures on water conservation, hygiene and girl child issues and other social subjects dotting the city walls.

Municipal Commissioner P V V S Murthy told The Hans India that picture paintings on public walls have prevented people from pasting posters and hand bills on the walls. The Ramnagar-PTC Road which used to be bumpy has been repaired and widened.

Cement sofas beside the avenue plantations has given the public an opportunity to relax under the shade of trees. The new Road-over-Bridge at Ramnagar is going to be a feather in the city's cap.

The commissioner is all set to execute laying of new roads through Smart Cities Development Corporation (SCDC), a special purpose vehicle floated by the state government for developing smart cities.

The Commissioner guided by MLA Prabhakar Choudhury and Mayor M Swaroopa is taking keen interest in executing new roads and making all transactions transparent and foolproof through e-local governance. Under the SCDC scheme, Vidyuthnagar-JNTU road, Judge Bungalow-Court Road, LKP-Srikantam Circle road and Tower Clock-Railway Station road were taken up repairs at a cost of Rs 10.86 crore.

Over 6 welcome arches with LED screen displays will be welcoming people to city from six directions. Rs 3 crore will be spent on the welcome arches. Also, conventional streetlights have been replaced with LED lights.

This step has brought down cost of power consumption by 50 per cent. To a question, Murthy said the quality of governance and tracking of files has drastically improved because of e-governance and making all transactions and programmes implementation transparent.