VMC Council meeting marred by arguments over statue installations, sanitation works

Vijayawada: The council meeting of the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) chaired by Mayor Bhagya Lakshmi, on Tuesday was marred by heated arguments between the ruling YSRC and the opposition Telugu Desam and CPM members.

Many corporators, including from TD, raised the issues of sanitation. They complained that sanitation workers didn't visit their areas regularly.

VMC Commissioner Swapnil Pundkar said they were mulling replacing 150 sanitation workers and that municipal part-time workers were striving hard to clean the city.

Central MLA of the YSRC, Malladi Vishnu, suggested the commissioner transfer or allocate the work to the sanitation workers in nearby places, as many of them have been coming from Ajithsingh Nagar and other areas. The commissioner and mayor said they would consider these issues.

The commissioner presented the issue of the development of Gandhi Hill before the council for a discussion and approval of the proposals. “We are developing Gandhi Hill by spending over Rs2 crore of the corporation’s general funds. Gandhi Hill can be developed under PPP mode. If the council gives its nod for this, the proposal will be sent to the district committee for consideration.

The district collector, VMC commissioner, and VMC CE are members of the panel. After the nod from the committee, the proposal shall go to the state government for the final nod,” he said.

As many as 130 issues including additional agenda items have been brought before the council for discussion. Of these, a few issues related to the installation of statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, G Krishna, Achanta Venkata Ratnam, and former minister Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru) in the VMC limits, mainly at the parks and the Tummalapalli Kalakshetram.

YSRC floor leader Venkata Satyanarayana raised the issue of installing the Super Star Krishna statue at a park in the Sri Kanaka Durga Gazetted Officers’ Colony. He also proposed to install a statue of Devineni Nehru on the Patama High School Road. YSRC corporators Adapa Seshu and Puppala Narasa Kumari proposed the installation of statues of former deputy mayor Barma Sitaramaiah and Achanta Venkataratnam at Krishna Lanka.

TD corporator Ummadi Venkateswara Rao proposed Akkineni Nageswara Rao’s statue at the Kalakshetram.

However, some YSRC, TD, and CPM corporators asked the town planning department whether there was a possibility of installing statues in public places and parks.

Responding to this, the city planner said that as per the Supreme Court guidelines and the state government GOs, there was no provision for establishing statues in public places, parks, etc.

Central MLA Malladi Vishnu questioned the city planner on this. The mayor also said that there was no space to install new statues at the Tummalapalli Kalakshetram. TD corporator Jasti Sambasiva Rao and YSRC Corporator Jana Reddy suggested that the officials allocate some places like the Tank Bund of Hyderabad to install statues of prominent persons.

They suggested the BRTS Road and GS Raju Road from the Old Government Hospital to Rythu Bazar in Gandhinagar as ideal locations to install statues.