GHMC residents deserve a fair deal

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) prides itself as the premier civic body in Telangana with one crore residents living in its sprawling 625 square km jurisdiction. But the citizens in this metropolis feel that they certainly deserve a fair deal from the civic authorities before Hyderabad could dream of becoming a global city with skyscrapers, skyways, widened corridors and a spic-&-span Hussainsagar lake.All the grandiose plans will take time to materialise and the concern of the civic officials should be on here-and-now. This hardly seems to be happening.
On one hand, the civic officials are busy conducting surveys or drawing up plans to make Hyderabad look like another New York, Dubai, Singapore, Dallas and what-have-you. On the other hand, they are showing the darker side of their mindset. It was a shocking spectacle to see the civic honchos displaying their garbage mentality a few days ago when they placed overflowing toxic garbage bins in front of bank premises to shame the property tax defaulters. Certainly, the defaulters don’t deserve any mercy but if the tax arrears pile up year after year, is it not the fault of civic officials who are supposed to collect these taxes promptly?
There seems to be a sea change in the attitude of civic officials of GHMC after the term of the elected body ended on December 3, 2014. With the mayor and corporators all gone on completing their tenure, it is again the Special Officer Raj in the state’s premier civic body with the honchos accountable to none.
It is rather the misfortune of Hyderabad that the city slips under the spell of special officers too often. During the last 50 years (1965-2015), Hyderabad had elected civic body for only 20 years while the special officers ran the show for 30 years in four spells.
Elections were held to Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad in 1960 and 1964 and the term of the body ended during the 1969 Telangana agitation. Special officers were appointed for MCH and they ruled the civic body for an uninterrupted 16 years when the then Telugu Desam Party government, under NT Rama Rao’s stewardship, was forced to conduct the civic elections in February 1986 on the directive of the AP High Court. The MIM-Congress alliance held power during 1986-1991 with MIM mayors and deputy mayors.
But the then Congress government developed cold feet to conduct the elections to MCH in 1991. Special officers were again appointed to run the MCH and their spell ran for 11 years this time. Once again, the then TDP government led by N Chandrababu Naidu was compelled to conduct MCH elections in January 2002 on the orders of the High Court.
TDP-BJP alliance had their mayor and deputy mayor while the MIM-Congress combine controlled the standing committee.
Soon after the term of the elected body ended in February 2007, the then Congress government formed the GHMC by merging 12 adjoining municipalities in Rangareddy and Medak districts with the MCH. Again, the MCH and later the GHMC came under the spell of special officers for almost three years. The civic officials took their own time to take up delimitation of divisions since the strength of the GHMC was fixed at 150 wards, including 100 in erstwhile MCH and 50 in the limits of 12 erstwhile municipalities. The then Congress regime under K Rosaiah was directed by the High Court to conduct the GHMC polls and this was the reason why civic elections were held in November 2009. The Congress and MIM came together to share the mayoral and deputy mayoral posts during 2009-2014.
Under the 74th Constitutional Amendment and the GHMC and Municipal Corporation Acts enacted in the state, it is mandatory to conduct elections to the civic bodies on or after the completion of the term of the elected body. Another stipulation in the municipal laws is that fresh delimitation of municipal divisions shall take place after every decennial census. Passing orders on a PIL, the High Court has directed the authorities to take up delimitation before conduct of elections.
On another PIL, the High Court has asked the state government to submit a firm time-table for the conduct of GHMC elections. However, there seems to be unwillingness on the part of the civic authorities to complete this delimitation exercise at the earliest. On the other hand, they are busy collecting the property tax and trade license fees while the civic infrastructure is rotting in Hyderabad.
(The writer is an MLC and a journalist)