The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Guntur News : GMC identifies key areas for aid under eco project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 30, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Guntur

GMC identifies key areas for aid under eco project

Ramesh Susarla

Focus on water supply, traffic and solid waste management

GUNTUR: The Guntur Municipal Corporation (GMC) has identified solid waste management, water supply and traffic management as the priority issues to be taken up as eco budgeting indicators under the European Union-funded environment management project.

During two days of interaction by the European team comprising representatives from the International Council for Local Environmental Initiative (ICLEI Europe), Municipality of Bologna in Italy, and ICLEI Asia, with the GMC Commissioner and other stakeholders, solid waste management emerged as the first indicator to work on.

Stress on budgeting

The euro 9,83,510 (Rs.51.14 crore) four-city Europe-Asia local government partnership for urban development programme envisages applying the principles of financial budgeting to the management of natural resources, the ICLEI European Secretariat technical representative, Andrea Burzacchini, told reporters here on Wednesday.

Guntur will get Rs.80 lakhs and another Rs.18 lakhs would be contributed by the GMC in the form of manpower utilization in the implementation of the eco-budget project. The experience of the European cities in implementing environmental management system would be replicated in the Asian cities of Bohol in the Philippines and Guntur in India.

The Bologna Municipality will assist the GMC in planning, monitoring and accounting for the use of natural resources.

Environmental indicators

The Bologna Municipality External Relations and International Projects manager, Pamela Lama, said that the `eco-budget' programme was based on environmental indicators used to monitor how environmental resources were utilized.

The indicators could vary based on the local needs and conditions, she observed.

"In the implementation and decision-making process, politicians, people and the municipal administrative set-up is involved to achieve the desired result," she pointed out.

The team members interacted with the financial managers in the GMC to tell them how to fix quantitative targets (both short-tem and long-term) approved by the municipal council.

International workshops

Four international workshops would be organized in the three-year project period of which the first one was held at Bologna in March and two of them would be organized in Guntur - one next year and the other at the end (September 2007).

The other indicators under consideration for Guntur were water supply, in which reducing the leaks could be a major target and traffic management for reducing air pollution.

The Municipal Commissioner, D. Rama Rao, the ICLEI Asia representative, Emani Kumar, Bologna Municipality Environment Scientific adviser, Cristina Garzillo, and the financial adviser, Manigehmorshedi, held a series of interactive sessions with different groups.

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