Chief Minister K Rosaiah has agreed to restrict the collection of development charges, betterment charges and other charges by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to 15 per cent under an eco-tourism project.
He reviewed the eco-tourism projects with minister for forests P Ramachandra Reddy and other officials.
Officials of the Andhra Pradesh Forest Development Corporation, the nodal agency to implement eco-tourism projects, said the GHMC was taking into account the entire area and was insisting on payment of various municipal charges accordingly. The building portion did not exceed 15 per cent of the total project area, which ran into several acres in the reserved forest areas, they said.
The forest department has initiated projects like Kawal sanctuary in Adilabad district, Farahabad in Srisailam, Hope Island in East Godavari, mangroves in Nizampatnam and a bird park at Uppalapadu in Guntur district. Work on these projects would commence next year. Projects at Boyakonda in Chittoor and Mrigavani national park at Gandipet would be taken up under the PPP model.
Other eco-tourism projects under implementation include Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy Botanical Garden (51.83 hectare with an outlay of Rs189 crore), night safari and eco-park (45.61 hectare with Rs 70.36 crore) and a bird park (12.43 hectare with Rs 32.71 crore) in the Kothaguda Reserve Forest area on the city outskirts, a release said.
CM approves Sushrutha project
Chief minister K Rosaiah has approved the ‘Sushrutha’ project, which envisages establishment of 22 state-of-the-art operation theatres on one floor of Gandhi Hospital at Secunderabad.
According to an official release, the project includes setting up of a medicalcare unit with 100 beds and creation of a centre of excellence in surgical skills with a superspeciality course in anaesthesia and super-speciality para-medical and nursing courses.
It will be implemented on a ‘managed services model’ at an estimated cost of about Rs 25 crore.
