Government will release another Rs. 60 crore after installation of machinery

Minister for Panchayat Raj Ch. Ayyanna Patrudu on Thursday said the Finance Department had cleared the file for release of Rs.60 crore for purchase of machinery for Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences.

Though the construction of VIMS has been completed at Adarsh Nagar, where a Health City is envisaged in an area of over 100 acres, its opening is pending for past five years for want of funds.

“Minister for HRD Ganta Srinivasa Rao and I, at the first Cabinet meeting held in Visakhapatnam, convinced Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to make VIMS operational at the earliest,” he told a meet-the-press organised by Vizag Journalists Forum.

Mr. Patrudu said he led a team to the Finance Department to get approval for release of funds. Once machineries were bought for the hospital, it would take three months for delivery and installation. Subsequently, the government would release another Rs.60 crore, he said.

Water grid

On the decision to create a water grid, he said the Chief Minister had decided to develop the grid with a provision to provide 155 TMC to meet the requirement of the State up to 2044 with an investment of Rs.30,000 crore to Rs.40,000 crore.

He said action plan was being prepared by involving experts for developing the grid on the lines of Gujarat model.

Admitting that the panchayat raj roads were poor in quality compared to R&B roads, he said they would be setting up quality control labs in each district and clear the bills only after certification by engineers.

Mr. Patrudu said after persuasion, the Centre had agreed to allow spending funds under NREGP for assets creation subject to fulfilling the norms.

The State would get Rs.8,000 crore towards NREGP during this year.

Stating that 62 lakh households in the State had no individual toilets, he said they would provide toilets to each family and they would rope in NGOs for supervision for construction of toilets .

He said the cheque powers of sarpanches would be removed if they failed to earmark land and construct garbage dumping yards by June.