The Hindu 24.09.2010
Focus on making Tirupati ‘slum-free'
Staff Reporter
| Workshop to support Rajiv Awas Yojana interventions organised |
-Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar 
Throwing light:Regina Dube of GTZ, MCT Commissioner M. Janaki and TUDA Vice-Chairman Ch. Penchal Reddy lighting a lamp at the workshop in Tirupati on Thursday.
TIRUPATI: The capacity development workshop to support the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) interventions conducted here on Thursday focused on planned expansion of the city by taking into account the slums, with an aim to achieve ‘inclusive growth'.
The three-day meet, which is in continuation to the plans to make the city slum-free, seeks to involve all the stakeholders, right from the top officials, lower level employees, community-based organizations up to the slum dwellers – the real beneficiaries. It may be noted here that the city has 42 slums, half of which are on objectionable lands and prone to deterioration.
Regina Dube, senior advisor, German Technical Corporation (GTZ), who is involved in Sustainable Urban Habitat (ASEM) under the Indo-German Environment Programme, lamented that almost all the cities were suffering from similar problems of irrational growth, hinting at urban sprawl with insufficient space for infrastructure. She said Tirupati and Raipur (Chhattisgarh) were growing very fast, thus leading environmental degradation and reduction of life quality.
She felt that the scores of central schemes like JNNURM, National Urban Sanitation Policy, National Action Plan on Climate Change with the Mission on Sustainable Habitats and the RAY were being implemented at one go -- with the same officials and involving the same denizens – thus putting the civic bodies to great work pressure.
MCT Commissioner M. Janaki explained the various projects being implemented by the civic body, while TUDA Vice-Chairman Ch.Penchal Reddy wanted the percolation of the concept to the grassroots.
Aparna Das, Senior Technical Expert, GTZ also took part.
