Hyderabad: BJP state vice-president N.V.S.S. Prabhakar has opposed the proposed merger of local bodies, including the Cantonment Board, 33 gram panchayats, 20 municipal councils, eight municipal corporations and 61 industrial parks into the GHMC without taking the opinion of experts and people’s representatives.
The Uppal, Kapra, Qutubbalapur and other municipalities were merged in the GHMC about 15 years ago, but were still struggling due to lack of basic amenities and lagging in development due to inefficient administrative control, he said.
Addressing a media conference at the state BJP office, Prabhakar lamented the status of civic conditions in the GHMC area, which has a lot of open-manhole deaths, encroached drainage nalas, caving-in incidents of dilapidated old buildings and increased pollution levels.
Like the BRS, the Congress government was not paying any attention to modernising the Nizam-era drainage system, street lights and desilting of lakes and focused only on increasing the revenue by merger of civic bodies, he alleged.
Demanding that the Congress government take the opinion of local MPs, municipal chairmans, councillors, corporation mayors and corporators before the merger of local bodies into the GHMC, Prabhakar said that the BJP would start a people’s movement if the government unilaterally went ahead with the merger.
