Kolhapur: The budget for the 2017-18 financial year focuses on making the city clean and congestion free.The civic administration has proposed slew of projects to address the sanitation concerns. For instance, the civic administration has decided to develop solid waste treatment plant at three places — Bondrenagar, Salokhenagar and Tawade Hotel area.The initiative will help decentralise the waste management process and reduce the strain on the limited staff. The KMC has already commissioned organic waste composter facility at Mailkhadda area and process of setting up of two biogas plants of five tonne capacity has begun.The KMC is going to undertake project to address the logistical issues related to solid waste management. The project will cost KMC Rs 65.92 crore and the civic authorities expect 50% of the funds be come through grants from the central and the state governments."We are going to draft the plan to address the bottlenecks in the solid waste management. Through the funds, we are going to address the issues related to garbage collection, transport and processing. We are expecting setting up of the waste to energy project to start from June this year and the garbage piled up at Kasba Bawda will be capped. We are planning to outsource garbage collection works," said P Siva Sankar, civic chief.The KMC has appointed Tata Engineering Services to draft the solid waste management plan, which will be ready in next three months.After several complaints from citizens and civic activists, the KMC has decided to improve synchronisation of 12 traffic signals, for which separate provision of Rs 25 lakhs has been made in the budget. The total funds for works such as installing direction boards, thermoplastic bands on the roads, speed breakers and road dividers is around Rs 1 crore.The civic administration has set aside Rs 2.5 crore for initiating Road Management System which will help track the condition of the roads in the city. The advanced technologies of geographic information system (GIS) and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) will be used to collect the data such as length and breadth of the roads, funds spent on constructing or repair of the roads and exact calculation of the funds required to maintain the roads. The idea was floated in the last budget; however, the KMC could not take the project forward as provision of substantial funds was not made.After repeated demand from the corporators, the civic administration has decided to upgrade the existing gardens. A picnic centre will be developed at Puikhadi by spending Rs 1 crore. The state government has refused to release the funds to the KMC for procurement of vehicle mounted-turn table ladder, useful to tackle fires in the highrises. The KMC has set aside Rs 11 crore to procure the turn table ladder.

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