Hyderabad to be smarter, safer & slum-free

Hyderabad, Nov 5: The Telangana government is planning to make Hyderabad a slum-free, smarter and a safer city if budgetary allocations are anything to go by. Telangana's Finance Minister E. Rajender, in his budget speech in the assembly Wednesday, said his government's priority is to make the city safe and crime-free. The government has already released Rs.350 crore for building a rapid response system to reach any trouble spot within 10 minutes in Hyderabad and Secunderabad. He allocated Rs.70 crore for installation of CCTV surveillance systems in Hyderabad and Cyberabad police Commissionerates. Another Rs.20 crore have been earmarked in the budget to make the police stations citizen friendly. Rs.31.41 crore was allocated for technology upgradation of the traffic management and fighting organized crime. Rs.45 crore were also allocated for the construction of barracks and camping centres in the Cyberabad Commissionerate region. Rs.250 crore was earmarked for Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to take up a slum-free city programme. Rs.416 crore is being given as loans to Hyderabad Metro Rail. Rs.581 crore have been allocated for improving water supply in slum areas of Hyderabad and for Krishna and Godavari water supply schemes and sewerage Improvement. The minister said Telangana government is in the process of unveiling an attractive, effective and investor-friendly industrial policy.