Telangana urbanising at a faster pace than India as a whole

The Telangana government has been giving special attention to the needs of the urban areas considering 47.6% of the population lives in them, whereas only 35.1% of India’s total population lives in cities and towns

The Telangana government has been giving special attention to the needs of the urban areas considering 47.6% of the population lives in them, whereas only 35.1% of India’s total population lives in cities and towns. The urban population is projected to be 12.5% points higher than that of the country, and this gap is expected to increase to 18.3 percentage points by 2036.

The National Commission on Population of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, said over 1.8 crore people residing in urban areas in 2023, will increase to 57.3% (2.3 crore) by 2036 or by 9.8%. In the same period, at the national level, urban residents are expected to increase from 35.1% in 2023 to 39.1% by 2036. It means Telangana’s urban population is projected to be 12.5% higher than that of the country, and this gap is expected to increase to 18.3% by 2036. Hence, Telangana will be more urbanised than India and urbanising at a faster pace than the country as a whole.

Since February 2020, the government had released ₹4,304 crore to 142 municipal bodies, including GHMC, under the flagship Pattana Pragati programme and out of these funds, ₹3,936 crore or about 92% of the funds have already been utilised by the municipal urban local bodies, said officials.

GHMC got the highest amount at ₹2,276 crore and the rest of ₹2,028 crore has been allocated to the 141 municipalities with money being released every month to make the municipal bodies financially viable. The Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) department has released ₹116 crore per month till February 2022, with ₹61 crore to GHMC and ₹55 crore to other municipal bodies for putting special focus on environmental protection and sanitation.

The ULBs other than the GHMC have increased the municipal solid waste daily collection to 4,356 tonnes from 2,675 tonnes with the help of 2,165 newly procured sanitation vehicles ensuring 100% collection from each household. The garbage collection vehicles got increased to 4,713 and this has significantly improved the sanitation.

As many as 1,233 acres of dumpyards were set up to process the collected garbage along with 206 dry source collection centres to separate the garbage into wet and dry. Another 229 compost beds were established to convert garbage into organic manure.

While 139 Faecal Waste Treatment plants with a capacity of 2,035 kilolitres per day were sanctioned at an estimated cost of ₹428 crores, 20 plants were completed, 14 plants are in the finishing stages, 49 plants are under construction and work on 50 other plants across the municipalities are expected to begin soon.