7 civic chiefs in 6 years; WMC crawls to serve

Warangal: Many come… Many go… But the development in Greater Warangal continues to crawl. Since the Warangal Municipal Corporation was upgraded to 'Greater' status in 2015, it has seen as many as seven Commissioners. It connotes that working for a considerable time in Warangal is itself a challenge, think about development later.

It's no exaggeration to say that many Municipal Commissioners who worked here were shown the doors before even they got to know the topography of the city. Such was the situation in Warangal when P Pravinya, a 2016 Batch IAS officer, took over the reins of GWMC on Friday.

Sarfaraz Ahmad, Shahid Masood (FAC), Sruthi Ozha, V P Gautham, N Ravi Kiran and Pamela Satpathy who shared little over six years between them at the helm of affairs of the Greater Warangal did give their best despite their relatively short stay as the Commissioner. But it's said that they never got going allegedly due to the pressure exerted by the politicians. This apart, the Commissioner has to deal with the understaffed GWMC. It may be mentioned here that there are 719 employees working with the GWMC presently as against the sanctioned posts of 1,512. Several key posts are also in the hands of in-charges. Speaking to The Hans India, Forum for Better Warangal president Pulluru Sudhakar said, "Heading GWMC is like walking on a knife-edge. The Commissioners in the past were not allowed a free hand in discharging their duties. It's difficult to handle the interference of politicians especially when someone is indicted of corruption or being lethargic. The Commissioners should be given a free hand especially in view of several ongoing works under Smart Cities Mission."

The post of Municipal Commissioner, who is also the Vice-Chairman of Kakatiya Urban Development Authority (KUDA), is crucial in the context of development works in Warangal such as Smart City, Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) etc.

The new Commissioner Pravinya was holding the post of Additional Commissioner, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), before she was transferred to Warangal in place of Pamela Satpathy, who was promoted and transferred as Yadadri-Bhongir District Collector recently. Prior to Pravinya's appointment, Hanumakonda District Collector Rajeev Gandhi Hanumanthu acted as the in-charge (FAC) Commissioner of the GWMC.