KMDA, KMWSA & KIT amalgamated for better service

Kolkata: Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), Kolkata Metropolitan Water and Sanitation Authority (KMWSA) and Kolkata Improvement Trust (KIT) have been amalgamated under one umbrella to ensure better service to people.

Firhad Hakim, the state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister, said: "The step has been taken to ensure better service to people."

"At the same time, the manpower of all the three bodies will be utilised in a much better way. There will be separate areas of work for drainage, road, electricity, etc.," he added.

Moreover, stress has been given so that civic bodies can utilise the allocated funds in a better way.

The civic bodies will have to prepare a detailed plan of the work they want to undertake in a year and it has to be submitted, so that all necessary processes can be undertaken before monsoon.

Hakim will be holding a meeting in this regard with representatives of all the civic bodies, at the Convention Centre in Rajarhat soon.

During the budget of the Urban Development and Municipal Affairs department on Tuesday, Hakim said that in the last five years of the Left Front government, Rs 439 crore was invested for infrastructure development, while between 2011 and 2018, the amount has gone up to Rs 1,193 crore.

Moreover, only Rs 103 crore was allotted for carrying out repair work of municipal roads in the last five years of the Left Front regime, whereas the amount has gone up to Rs 469 crore in the past five years of the Mamata Banerjee government.

In a bid to ensure proper supply of water, the present government has invested Rs 4,909 crore in the past five years, which was only Rs 41.84 crore in the same period of time of the erstwhile Left Front government.

Interestingly, the Left Front government had completed phase I of two plants - one in Nadia and the other one in Uluberia, to supply safe drinking water.

The present government has, in the past five years, completed 55 such projects while work of 35 more is going on in full swing.