Hyderabad,  Jan 27 (KNN) The government  will soon launch a new version  of PURA (Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) under which the Centre will select developers  in the clusters chosen for infrastructure development.

According to Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, creating physical infrastructure in rapidly urbanizing clusters will be a major challenge for the country in the coming years. He said, there are about 3900 such clusters in the country which do not fall either in rural or urban area and the Ministry of Rural Development will undertake projects like water supply, sanitation, street lighting, tourism and improvement of roads through Public-Private Partnership mode in such areas. The Project is rechristened as new PURA (Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas).

He was speaking here after signing of the Concession Agreement and State Support Agreement for the PURA project in Ibrahimpatnam and Kondapalli Gram Panchayat clusters of Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh.

Ramesh said soon PURA-2 will be launched where Centre will select the developers, while the State Governments will choose the clusters for creation of infrastructure. 

On  occasion, Secretary, Rural Development  L C Goyal said, Ministry is putting lots of emphasis in grounding of good PURA projects across the country so that people in rural areas do not feel deprived of urban amenities and do not have the urge to migrate to cities in search of good living.  He said, there are 4 Ps in the model as this is not only about Public Private Partnership, but also about involvement of People’s and communities at Gram Panchayat level. 

Krishna District PURA Project is third in the country as two such projects were launched earlier at Thrissur and Malapuram districts of Kerala. The Minister informed that fourth PURA project will also materialize soon in the Warangal District of Andhra Pradesh.  (KNN Bureau)