AP To Launch Special Housing Plan For Visakhapatnam’s Displaced Slum Residents
Narayana visited the homes of displaced residents to personally assess their living conditions. Expressing concern, he said many families were forced to live in extremely cramped spaces of barely six square feet: Reports
VISAKHAPATNAM: Municipal administration minister P. Narayana on Monday announced that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has directed the immediate construction of houses for displaced families in Visakhapatnam, which has the highest number of slum areas in the state. He said special action plans are being prepared to address the issue on priority.
During his visit to the city, the minister inspected the Velampeta Lakshmi Nagar slum area in the Visakhapatnam South constituency and interacted with residents and enquired about the challenges they face.
He was accompanied by GVMC mayor Pila Srinivasa Rao, deputy mayor Dalli Govindaraj, Visakhapatnam South MLA Vamsi Krishna Srinivas Yadav, GVMC commissioner Ketan Garg, VMRDA Commissioner N. Tej Bharat, local corporator Villuri Bhaskara Rao, and other officials.
The mayor, MLA, deputy mayor and GVMC commissioner briefed him on issues related to housing construction. Residents said they had been living and working in the area for nearly 50 years and stressed the urgent need for permanent houses and basic amenities for 177 families, particularly as they face severe hardship during the rainy season.
Narayana visited the homes of displaced residents to personally assess their living conditions. Expressing concern, he said many families were forced to live in extremely cramped spaces of barely six square feet. He assured them that concrete steps would be taken to construct houses at the earliest.
He said all necessary measures would be implemented to develop the Velampeta slum area as a special project and that the matter, along with the ground-level challenges, would be brought to the Chief Minister’s attention. He assured local representatives and residents that efforts would be made to complete the housing construction as soon as possible.
The MLA said the problems in the Velampeta slum area had persisted for decades and welcomed the state government’s focus on addressing them. He noted that, apart from the Lakshmi Nagar layout, five other projects were pending and said resolving these would transform the Visakhapatnam South constituency into a model area in the state.
The MLA added that road construction in the slum areas had already been completed and that housing remained the only major unresolved issue. He said addressing the long-pending problems at Poornamarket would significantly improve living conditions in the constituency.
Officials present during the inspection included GVMC additional commissioners D.V. Ramanamurthy and P.M. Satyaveni, chief engineer P.V. Satyanarayana Raju, zonal commissioner M. Mallayya Naidu, supervising engineers Pallamaraju and Royal Babu, assistant medical officer Dr Krishnam Raju, and APD Padmavathi, among others.