The Hindu : Front Page : Wide-ranging powers for HMDA

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Tuesday, Mar 18, 2008
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Wide-ranging powers for HMDA

New authority to deal with traffic management, law and order issues

HYDERABAD: With the city acquiring the status of a metropolis and its administrative boundaries expanding, the State Government has decided to constitute a development authority and vest it with wide-ranging powers to effectively coordinate the development in the metropolitan area.

Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA), as the new body will be named, will have the Chief Minister as chairman and the Municipal Administration Minister as vice-chairman. Heads of the departments in the rank of principal secretaries and special chief secretaries will be the members of the HMDA.

Dissolution of HUDA

The HMDA will be mandated to ensure planning, coordination and supervision among the various departments dealing with several activities ranging from traffic management to maintaining law and order. Once the constitution of the HMDA is notified, the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) would be dissolved and incorporated into it. Other agencies like the Cyberabad Development Authority, Hyderabad Area Development Authority and Buddha Purnima Project Development Authority would become functional units of the new entity.

The State Cabinet, at a meeting here on Monday, is understood to have approved a draft Bill for the constitution of the new authority that will be spread over an area of 6,856 sq.km and will house a population of 67 lakh (2001 census figures). The entire area in Hyderabad district, ten mandals in Medak, 22 in Ranga Reddy, four in Nalgonda and two in Mahabubnagar district will fall under HMDA’s purview.

The Cabinet also approved alienation of 250 acres of land to Georgia Institute of Technology at Mucherla village in Kandukur mandal of Ranga Reddy for setting up campus for an institution of excellence that would offer courses in Masters and Ph. D. The land allocation to the new campus was made on the basis of guidelines adopted for the BITS Pilani.

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