An ambitious plan to make Vijayawada a slum-free city, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has decided to take up various developmental works, including a housing scheme 
for the development of slums under Rajiv Awas Yojna (RAY).
Sensitive issues
The VMC organised an awareness meeting on RAY vis-à-vis` Vijayawada on Wednesday. The meeting witnessed discussion on a few politically sensitive issues like eviction of people living on Karakatta (river berm), canal bunds and riverbed, and household survey taken up under Indiramma programme.
The number of slums identified under the project also gave scope for corporators to express their displeasure, while opposition parties criticised the ruling Congress and the officials for not placing the project details before the general body prior to submitting it to the government.
The corporation has identified 109 slums in the city for development under the RAY at an estimated cost of Rs. 2,223 crores. The VMC plans to relocate the people living in 19 hazardous areas, including canal bunds, riverbed and river berm.
The ruling Congress, however, felt that the VMC should extend the RAY project area to the villages that fall under the proposed Greater Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (GVMC) too, as there should be planning for the next 25 years while ensuring that the city became a slum-free one.
It also suggested to the officials to “further filter” the category of hazardous slums and relocate the dwellers of only the “most dangerous or hazardous slums”. The Congress also wanted the officials to look for ways and means to include the cost of the land acquisition for taking up housing programme under RAY.
Municipal Commissioner G. Ravi Babu, responding to the suggestions, asked the officials to include localities inhabited by SCs, STs and BCs in neighbouring villages too under RAY, and see if there was any possibility to include the land cost.
He, however, made no commitment about trimming the list of slums for the purpose of relocation. Mayor M.V. Ratna Bindu, floor leaders in the general body Ch. Babu Rao of the CPI (M), D. Sankar of the CPI, Congress senior corporators Samanthapudi Narasaraju and Sistla Ramalinga Murthy, Deputy Mayor S.P. Gritton and others spoke.
The project
The RAY envisages bringing existing slums within the formal system and enabling the dwellers to avail themselves of the same level of basic amenities as those of other areas in the city, while also tackling the shortages of urban land and housing that keep shelter out of the reach of the urban poor.
The scheme would be implemented in a span of five years. Under this, the VMC would emphasise on drinking water, sanitation, drains, roads, street lighting, underground drainage, municipal solid waste, linking infrastructure, schools, anganwadis, urban health centres, employment, community halls, parks and playgrounds.
