HYDERABAD: Cleanliness is next to Godliness, so says the old saw. The fourth phase of the 15-day Pattana Pragati programme, which concluded recently, has made an attempt to make the towns and cities more livable with better upkeep.As monsoon is setting over the State, it is all the more important that better sanitation should be the watchword and accordingly the programme had this objective at its core.
Apart from sanitation, the officials of the civic bodies focused more on the development of model markets, public and colony parks, dump yards, public toilets and street vendor zones, nurseries, modern Vaikunthadhamams, construction of open gyms, creation of urban lung spaces in towns and cities.
The state stressed on sanitation as it would not only ward off infections but would make the cities look better, the ambience of which alone would add to the well-being of the residents.Towards this end, the officials made generous allocations for taking up the programme with verve. There was some kind of competition among the 142 Urban Local Bodies on who would do better on the sanitation front which had helped the towns and cities acquire a pleasant look.
The officials used as many as 2,254 sanitation vehicles, purchased recently in ULBs and GHMC limits, to make the cities spic and span. Together with the new vehicles, a total of 5,000 vehicles were on the constant move to ensure the objective.
The vehicles lifted 4,295 tonnes per day in all the towns put together. About 50 lakh bins were distributed for collecting the door-to-door garbage and GHMC limits were among the best few managed urban bodies.
The programme laid emphasis on the dump yards and Dry Resource Collection Centres (DRCCs). Among the 141 ULBs, thousand acres of dump yards had been developed.
In addition to the 206 existing DRCC centres, some more new dry resource collection centres were planned and the newly contemplated DRCCs were given top priority. In addition to the 224 compost sheds located in the urban local bodies the fourth phase programme covered more areas and that aspect is implemented in a planned manner.
The public toilet system was also given a thrust in the fourth phase and the existing 9,900 odd public toilets were appended with more new toilets. The establishment of Faecal Sludge Treatment Plants (FSTPs) was given priority as was done in the first three phases. Previously 71 old ULBs were covered in the project.