GMC okays ₹140-cr infra work to reduce pollution
GHAZIABAD: The Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) in its infrastructure development funds’ (IDF) meeting, held at district headquarters on Wednesday, gave a nod for different development works of about ₹140 crore to be taken up in the city.
Officials said that during the marathon meeting, which lasted about five-and-a-half hours, prime focus was on improving civic infrastructure with a view to reduce pollution.
According to officials, it was the first meeting which chaired by Mayor Asha Sharma who was assigned power in February this year. Previously, the meetings were chaired by the divisional commissioner (Meerut).
“During the course of the meeting, each of the proposals, which collectively amounted to about ₹500 crore, were discussed at length. However, we only had about ₹140 crore available with us under the infrastructure development head and the 14th Finance Commission. So, all the priority proposals will be taken up as per the budget parameters and final minutes will be rolled out in a day or two,” GMC commissioner and IDF committee secretary Dinesh Chandra said.
He said that works related to pollution-abatement measures have been taken up on priority.
“We have planned to buy equipment for taking up scientific composting of solid waste. This will be done up in the shortterm, while the long-term measure—construction of waste-toenergy plant at Galand, is already proposed,” he said.
The officer added that the corporation will also buy the sophisticated water spraying and sprinkling equipment.
“These will be on lines as already operational in Delhi. The pollution levels are already high in the city and we need high capacity and latest technology sprinklers. So, the proposal for buying these was discussed and cleared. Apart from these, the other proposals for construction of bad roads, installation of rainwater harvesting systems in parks and construction of sewerage systems, drinking water supply systems etc. were also taken up,” he added.
Officials sources said that road construction activities will be taken up at 12 locations, including locations near New Bus Adda Metro station, Shalimar Garden, Meerut Road, Shastri Nagar, near Tulsi Niketan, near NH-9, Shaheed Nagar and Rajendra Nagar, among others.
Officials said that for improving drinking water supply, proposal for three new deep borewells, reboring of 19 deep borewells and other 10 works related to water supplies were also approved.
The corporation has also planned to rope in horticulture equipment at a cost of about ₹2.79 crore for improving conditions of different parks it maintains.