Citizens deserve a ‘Swachh Hyderabad’

A new visitor to Cyberabad—the IT extension of the twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad—may be overawed by the presence of huge towers housing the IT/ITES and financial companies from across the globe in the Madhapur-Manikonda-Nanakramguda urban sprawl but the citizens of this metropolis certainly know how desperately they deserve to have “Swachh Hyderabad.”
The state of civic amenities in large tracts that constitute the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits has been anything but good.Things turned from bad to worse after the elected body completed its term in November 2014 and the civic administration slipped into the hands of the bureaucrats again. The civic officials and the thousands of lower rung staff under them had been busy with different campaigns since December 2014 and hardly had the time to prevent the rot that had set in on the sanitation front.
First, there was the drive to improve the collections of property tax and the trade license fees and everybody who mattered in the GHMC was involved in this task for weeks. Even the swine flu menace in the twin cities did not deter them from focusing on the tax collection drive. Then, there was the campaign for linking the Aadhar cards with the electoral photo-identity cards and everybody from the sanitation to malaria staff too was entrusted the task of Aadhar seeding!
When the sorry status of civic amenities dawned on GHMC top-brass, they realised that the mess that has accumulated over the last six months can only be set right through the campaign mode. This is how chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao conceived the idea to adapt Swachh Bharat campaign to Hyderabad City—one of the sixth largest metropolitan cities in the country with over one crore population. An integral part of Telangana State, Hyderabad doubles up as the ‘common capital’ for residuary AP State as well.
The new initiative turned out to be timely as the citizens had begun to resent the insanitary conditions they were forced to live with. Heaps of garbage, overflowing drains, leaking water pipelines, silted storm water drains, dug-up roads in the lanes and bylanes, non-functional street-lights had become the common sight for the citizens across the twin cities in the last few months. Now, during the five-day campaign under Swachh Hyderabad, the citizens hope to see some improvement in their surroundings.
Though the immediate inspiration for Swachh Hyderabad came from the nation-wide campaign “Swachh Bharat” launched by NDA government, the TRS regime in the new state seems to have been motivated by campaigns undertaken by successive governments in the erstwhile united AP to take the administration closer to the doorsteps of the people to resolve their grievances and provide them with benefits and amenities under the government schemes.
The first to come up with a people-centric programme was late N T Rama Rao. He had conceived Prajala Vaddaku Palana (PVP) in August 1995 but he was toppled by his son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu before the programme could be launched. Naidu himself replicated PVP under the name of Janmabhoomi and Sramadanam campaigns during his nine-and-a-half year rule as united AP CM during 1995-2004. Successive governments under Congress chief ministers Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, K Rosaiah and N Kiran Kumar Reddy implemented Prajapatham and Rachabanda programmes which were similar to Janmabhoomi and Sramadanam.
While these previous campaigns covered almost all the government schemes—white ration cards, welfare pensions, weaker sections housing, subsidised cooking gas connections etc—the focus of ‘Swachh Hyderabad’ campaign is on cleaning up the state capital and improving the civic amenities before it is too late.
Another pleasant difference is that while the bureaucrats and middle-rung officers were deputed all over the state for the earlier campaigns, the top-notch IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service officers are all deployed as ‘mentors’ of teams in the twin cities for Swachh Hyderabad campaign. The governor, CM, the cabinet ministers, MPs and legislators are also roped in as ‘patrons.’ Resident/ apartment/ basthi welfare associations, trade associations, corporate and non-governmental organisations are encouraged to be actively involved.
Teams of officials drawn from GHMC, Hyderabad Metro Water Supply & Sewerage Board, Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company, District Collectorates of Hyderabad, Rangareddy and Medak and Hyderabad and Cyberabad Police Commissionerates have fanned out into the 425 ‘Swachh units’ in GHMC, Secunderabad Cantonment and Industrial Area Local Authorities limits spread over 650 sq kms. Each area is promised funds of Rs 50 lakhs for works based on felt-needs of the local residents. We would know in a week’s time how successful this campaign has been.
(The author is an MLC and a journalist)