Visakhapatnam: Andhra Pradesh Federation of Residents Welfare Associations (APFERWAS) which has already taken up 130 residential colony associations under its ambit to connect the civil society with the civic administration to address issues, has celebrated its first anniversary on Monday.
APFERWAS mainly focuses on the solid waste management, rooftop solar plants, rainwater harvesting and on top of all this, educating the public about the new RERA guidelines. The Federation has also conducted many workshops on these subjects for colony residents.
Waste segregation at sources assumes significance as the cleanliness ranking survey is giving utmost importance to it. Hence, the role of the RWA is also important. The city is generating on an average 1,000 tonne of waste per day out of which 30 per cent is wet waste. At present, only 105 tonne is being segregated at the source, thereby causing inconvenience to GVMC sanitary workers.
“Formation of the federation has not only helped the public but the civic body too. We are able to take up various issues by conducting meetings with officials at regular intervals. Long pending colony issues concerning roads, drains, street lights and parks of residential colonies have been addressed due to the intervention of the federation. Our voices are getting heard due to this platform,” said APFERWA president Uday Shirname.
The association has set a target to bring another 100 RWAs in its fold. It has also decided to draw the attention of the civic authorities on various issues such as pollution by VPT, stray dog menace, the supply of safe drinking water round the clock to the city, traffic problems and plans to spread its objectives and model of healthy living and responsible citizenship to all other urban areas of the state.
At the 5th National Conference of RWAs held recently in Mumbai on November 18, six members of APFERWAS were honoured with Excellence Awards by Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister of Housing, in recognition of their outstanding work in the RWA field. The members are Uday Shirname, Dr KSR Murthy, Jeeja Valsaraj, TV Nageswara Rao, Usha Gajapati Raju from Vizag and Sri Rama Raju from Kakinada.
