The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Vijayawada News : German city for relief tie-up with Vijayawada

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 09, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada

German city for relief tie-up with Vijayawada

By A. Saye Sekhar

Ravindra Gujjula, Mayor of Altlandsberg city of Germany (extreme right) with his wife and teammates, Klaus-Dieter Czajkowski and Detlef Jung, in Vijayawada on Tuesday. — Photo: Raju V.

VIJAYAWADA, FEB. 8. The city of Altlandsberg in Germany desires to enter into a tie-up with Vijayawada city and its surrounding areas for taking up development programmes. The Indian-born Mayor of Altlandsberg, Ravindra Gujjula, has called on the district Collector, K. Prabhakara Reddy, and the Commissioner of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation, V. Usha Rani, and discussed with them threadbare the various projects being contemplated by his city, the Lions Club in his area and also the German Government.

Later, Dr. Ravindra, along with his wife and teammates - Detlef Jung (president of Lions' Club) and Klaud-Dieter Czajkowski (member of the club) -- visited The Hindu office on Tuesday.

Projects planned

He said the German Government proposed to give 0.5 billion Euros towards tsunami relief. After going through the checklist, he said he decided to have some projects planned for Andhra Pradesh.

The team decided to build school-cum-shelters in four to five villages, cottages for children, who were rendered destitute by the tsunami and being taken care of by SKCV Children's Home in Vijayawada, and also make the roads, particularly those in tsunami-affected areas in Krishna district, motorable.

The assistance being extended by the German Government would only be for tsunami relief. Therefore, he requested the Collector to have project reports prepared and submitted in the form of an application. If the German government was convinced of the requirement on going through the applications, the projects could be taken up.

However, the amount collected through fund-raisers and Lions Club would be spent in these parts of the State only.

The Collector should also give an undertaking officially that the administration would maintain the projects funded by the German Government for at least 10 years.

If the assistance were to be sanctioned, it would be known in about eight weeks.

Chancellor's directive

In accordance with the Chancellor's directive, every city in Germany should tie up with another city in the tsunami-affected countries. So, the city of Altlandsberg planned to tie up with Vijayawada and its surrounding areas.

He recalled that schoolchildren donated 750 euros of their pocket money for tsunami victims.

Relief material was supplied to 730 families in villages around Machilipatnam and Avanigadda in the presence of the local legislator, M. Buddha Prasad, on Monday.

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