VIJAYAWADA: To ensure safe drinking water supply to all households, the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development (PR and RD) Department will take up projects worth Rs 2,000 crore in Prakasam and Visakhapatnam districts.
The State government, on Friday, issued administrative sanction for the project which will be executed by the Andhra Pradesh Drinking Water Supply Corporation (APDWSC).
According to the government order issued by Principal Secretary (PR and RD) KS Jawahar Reddy, 10 projects will be taken up in Visakhapatnam and two in Prakasam. Around Rs 1,000 crore will be spent on the projects in each district.
“Now that the administrative sanction has been given, we will go ahead with the tenders after finalising the consolidated list of works of Single Village Schemes (SVS) and Multi Village Schemes (MVS),” an official said.
The projects are a part of drinking water supply projects proposed across eight districts — Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam — worth Rs 6,330 crore.
The officials said Rs 5,330 crore of the total outlay will be borrowed from various public sector banks, while the State government will bear the remainder.
Following the guarantee extended by the State government to the principal amount as well as interest of the loan, the APDWSC has already decided to borrow Rs 1,000 crore each from Punjab and Sind Bank and Vijaya Bank, and Rs 500 crore from Canara Bank.