Amrut Mission: GIS survey completed at Kancheepuram

According to an official in Directorate Town and Country Planning (DTCP), which is the implementing agency of Amrut in the State, the university has recently completed the Geographic Information System (GIS)-based survey with the help of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) that it has. “Now the university has started preparing GIS maps of the towns,” the official said.

The DTCP had given the contract to prepare GIS-based master plan of Thoothukudi, Nagercoil, Tirunelveli and Rameswaram to a private consultant. “The union government had selected 33 towns to be refurbished under the AMRUT Mission in Tamil Nadu. Following the Centre’s announcement, the State government has directed DTCP to carry out the project at 18 of 33 towns during the first phase. Based on that, the 18 towns were tabled into 5 packages and tenders were floated to prepare master plans,” the official said.

However, even after floating re-tenders for Dindigul, Karaikudi, Rajapalayam (package 1), Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Ambur, Salem (package 2), Thanjavur, Pudukottai and Kumbakonam (package 3), the DTCP is yet to identify suitable consultants. “So, we are discussing to conduct in-house preparation of masterplans for those towns. The State government will make the final call on whether to appoint consultant or conduct an in-house survey,” the official said.

The central government has allocated Rs 75 lakh to prepare draft masterplans for each town. “All the pending funds from the centre have released. But, we have given 5-year time to implement the mission,” said the official, expressed confidence that the works would be completed before that.

Under Amrut, TN would receive investments of Rs 11,237 crore with Central assistance of Rs. 4,756 crore for the five-year period. The mission aims to provide drinking water, sewerage and drainage networks and non-motorised transport, among others, in the selected 500 cities across the country.