Corporators' 'study tour' to cost cash strapped GHMC Rs.50 lakh

Hyderabad, Jan 26 (INN): Corporators of the Congress and Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen are keenly waiting for their Telugu Desam Party and Bharatiya Janata Party colleagues to take a decision to join them for a 'study tour.' The 'study tour', if the TDP and BJP Corporators agree, will take them to New Delhi, Amritsar and Chandigarh, to study the development works in these cities.

The Congress and MIM Corporators are keen to get the answer from their colleagues soon, since the planned trip, in the first week of February will be the best possible time. The weather would just be perfect, with the winter having passed by and the summer yet to begin in earnest. The trip would cost the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation about Rs 50 lakh.

For the GHMC, which is already cash strapped and in debt, the 'slight' increase in its burden should hardly be a worrying factor, since after all the Corporators are representing the public. And obviously, the GHMC has been set up to serve the public. For the GHMC, showering largesse on the 'public', is nothing new. The Corporators will soon get handycams to shoot their 'struggle to serve the public'.

A proposal has already been sent to the Ministry of Municipal Administration and Urban Development, seeking sanction of Rs 45 lakhs for the handycams. Each handycam would cost about Rs 40,000. The Corporators had earlier been given a laptop each, not to mention the recently concluded 'sport meet' held for them.

This 'meet', held to perhaps galvanise the Corporators to getting some exercise was conducted at a cost of Rs 20 lakh. Earlier, a cultural programme was also organised for the Corporators, costing the GHMC a whopping Rs 23 lakh. The Corporators phone bills are also being paid by the GHMC. After all they represent the public and the GHMC has been constituted to serve the citizens.

It may be mentioned here that the Corporators had earlier been taken In addition to a study tour of New Delhi and Agra cities in July. That trip was organised by the Ramky Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited, ostensibly to study the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Projects being managed by the company in these cities.

The company is said to have spent over Rs 1.2 crore on that 'study tour', since most of the Corporators chose to take their families along on that trip. That tour was believed to have been organised by the Ramky group to mollify the Corporators since they were against the agreement between the GHMC and the company.