KfW to help Tirupati emerge ‘climate resilient’

Tirupati Urban Development Authority (TUDA) on Friday (February 20) held a meeting to work out the details for a mission to transform Tirupati into a ‘climate resilient city’, and the KfW Development Bank, which executes international development cooperation for the German Federal government, came forward to implement the project.

Notably, TUDA Chairperson C. Divakar Reddy had announced a plan to transform Tirupati into a “city of tanks and lakes”, and the urban development body has taken up a survey to this end.

The meeting, called by TUDA Vice-Chairperson R. Govinda Rao, was attended by officials from KfW Development Bank, ICLEI South Asia, irrigation engineers and IIT professors.

KfW senior sector specialist Kiran Kumar Avadhanula, ICLEI director Sowmya Chaturvedula and deputy director-general Emani Kumar expressed readiness to implement the project.

This entails preventing urban flooding through developing and rejuvenating water-bodies, enhancing blue-green-grey infrastructure and integrating nature based solutions in urban fabric to improve the city’s sustainability and adaptive capacity in the face of climate change.

The team offered to prepare a concept note and a detailed project report by conducting scientific hydrological survey, besides a social and environmental impact assessment.

Retired Chief Engineer (Irrigation) P.V. Subba Rao; IIT academics Krishna Prabhu and Roshan; MCT superintending engineer Syam Sunder; irrigation executive engineers P.V. Prasad and Siva Reddy; and TUDA Secretary N.V. Sreekanth Babu discussed the present status of water bodies, waste water infrastructure and the need for water harvesting structures.