Vijayawada: The richest villages aro-und Vijayawada city may lose their status as the city expands its tentacles and acquires a new identity. Now, the 19 villages in its midst will be merged under plans for a ‘metropolitan city’. The Vijayawada Muni-cipal Corporation (VMC) has already passed the resolution and submitted the proposal to the state government. The Metro Rail corridor will be possible for Penamaluru and Ramavarapadu-Gannava-ram villages only if the villages surrounding the city are included in it. This was why the VMC designed the plans to deve-lop the city as a new metropolitan city.
Consequently, the villages around Vijayawada city, especially Kanuru, Penamaluru, Gollapudi, Poranki, Gannavaram, Nidamanuru and Tadi-gadapa will lose their special status of being known as the richest villages, both in terms of income and population.
The VMC plans to merge with the city those villages that are at its outskirts, such as Ramavarapadu, Prasadampadu, Enike-padu, Nidamanuru, Atku-ru, Gudavalli, Kesarapalli, Buddavaram, Gannava-ram, Kanuru, Poranki, Tadigadapa, Yanamalaku-duru, Penamaluru, Golla-pudi, Jakkampudi, Nu-nna, Pathapadu and Amb-apuram. This will re-eme-rge in future as the metropolitan city. Villages like Kanuru, Penamaluru, Poranki, Tadigadapa, Yanamalakuduru, Nunna and Gollapudi are witnessing major construction and realty activity, with crores of rupees coming in in the form of taxes and cess. Kanuru village panchayat’s annual income alone was '6 crore while Poranki’s was '3-4 crore and Gollapudi’s and Ramavarapadu’s was '2 crore. Other villages too earn about '1-2 crore ann-ually, says Penamuluru mandal rural development extension officer.
These villages already have apartment blocks of about 200 and 200 to 300 group houses. Every village has a bank and several corporate schools and hospitals have also set up their branches. Gated community colonies and duplex houses are also being constructed and land prices have gone from '3 crore to '20 crore depending on location. However, all the villages will be a part of VMC.
