Nellore: Five commissioners transferred in 2017

Nellore: Rulers of Nellore civic body have set a record of sorts by transferring five commissioners during last four years under some pretext or other. In fact the number of commissioners changed can be put at nine if the term of the four in-charge commissioners in between is taken into account. Most of the commissioners, except one or two, were good at their work and they were shunted out for not toeing the line of the ruling TD in the civic body exactly when they began streamlining all activities of the municipal Corporation.

Some of them like P.V.V.S. Murthy improved the revenue collections of the fund starved municipality and cleared outstanding power bills to the extent of '20 crore but he was shown the door unceremoniously allegedly when he took a stand against violation of rules. The same stance led to the transfer of a young IAS officer Chakradhar Babu, who was all set to remove the encroachments in the thoroughfares of the city as part of Smart City proposal, within six months after his posting.

The latest victim is S.Dilli Rao, a RDO cadre officer. He brought some changes in door-to-door garbage collection and went ahead with encroachment removal drive in some areas despite resistance from civic body members and improved revenue collection too. One of his faults is going ahead with encroachment removal drive without consulting the mayor and arguing that they need not consult the mayor or others for every issue as per rules.

He stated this while reacting to a question by the mayor during a recent general body meeting of the civic body. He also said they are free to transfer him if they are not happy with his style of functioning. The open remarks of the officer had caused embarrassment to the bigwigs of the ruling party forcing them to shift the Commissioner, a senior TD leader said. Interestingly Mr Dilli Rao, who was also in-charge vice-chairman for Nellore Urban Development Authority, has been posted full time for the post now despite his differences with the chairman of NUDA Kotamreddy Srinivasulu Reddy.

Mr Reddy had openly found fault with the officer for not following their instructions sometime back. It remains to be seen as to how the duo will sail together in the newly established NUDA. Meanwhile the municipal administration department has posted Mr Alim Basha, who worked as Commissioner of Tadipatri, Kadapa and Kakinada, to Nellore and he has taken charge on Thursday. He was handpicked for the post by the urban development minister P. Narayana, sources said.