With the officials of the Kakinada Municipal Corporation taking up the job of beautifying the premises of the Zilla Parishad High School at Pagadalapeta on a war-footing, in a quick response to the directions to this effect by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, focus has now shifted to the other announcements made by Mr. Naidu for the city during his recent visit here. People are keeping their fingers crossed hoping for an early execution of the schemes.
During the Arogya Andhra Pradesh meeting held here, the students of the Pagadalapeta ZP High School had complained to the Chief Minister of the unhygienic surroundings of their school. Reacting swiftly, Mr. Naidu asked the officials to beautify the school and the municipal officials swung into action.
The other announcements by him from the same venue such as construction of a third bridge across the Upputeru, construction of a solid waste management plant and underground drainage have now become the hot topics of discussion in the local circles, as all these are long-pending issues that have a bearing on the everyday civic life.
“Laying of an outer ring road and construction of a bridge across Upputeru connecting all the arterial roads at Jagannaikpur junction will certainly ease the movement of vehicular traffic on the city roads. Particularly, all the 500 lorries that move towards the port daily will take the new route thus reducing the traffic congestion on the other roads,” says Dantu Surya Rao, chairman of the Cocanada Chamber of Commerce.
Services of JNTUK
The traders have been seeking the outer ring road and the new bridge for quite some time, as there has been a steady increase in the import and export activity at both the Anchorage and deepwater ports. At present, all port-bound trucks are passing through the Jagannaikpur junction and Wharf road in the absence of an alternative. “The expertise of the JNTUK can be used for the proposed road and bridge, as it should be designed by keeping in view the vehicular population rise in the next three decades,” Mr. Rao points out.
No garbage dumping yard
When it comes to the solid waste management and underground drainage projects, both have remained on paper for quite a long time as the former needs suitable land while the latter requires huge funding. All the 250 metric tonnes of garbage being produced by the city daily is being dumped on the roadside in different isolated locations in the city, as the officials could not spot a designated dumping yard. Though there is a streamline system for collecting and transporting the garbage, there is neither a dump yard nor a solid waste management plant. “The Chief Minister has declared war against mosquitoes in the city, where garbage is being unloaded on the roadside and the entire city is under water during the monsoon. How can the government declare the city as mosquito-free without addressing these problems?” asks Dusarlapudi Ramana Raju, a social activist.
