VMC’s 4-year glorious ‘nothingness’

Vijayawada, Dec 30 : The Vijayawada Municipal Council, in retrospect, has indulged in glorious nothingness such as infighting, lobbying for mayor and deputy mayor posts, showering promises for development sans implementation of projects in the past four years.Looking back at the four years, the civic leaders should have reviewed their work or gone in for introspection. As part of a power-sharing pact with the Left parties, the first year's term was left to CPI corporator Tadi Sakuntala who bowed out to Congress nominee after her Mayoral term was over.As the CPM decided against sharing mayor's post, the Congress has decided to share the post for two years each between the Lagadapati's group and the group of Vangaveeti Radhakrishna (also Cong), who later switched over to Prajarajyam Party.

After Tadi's one-year term, Mallika Begum of Lagadapati group was at the helm for two years and handed over the mantle to Ratnabindu of Vangaveeti group. As soon as Ratnabindu was made mayor, Vangaveeti quit the party.The deputy chairman post was shared among four candidates in four years. Likewise, floor leader in the Council was shared by three corporators. The JNNURM funds was the only source of income for the Corporation. The scheme was sanctioned not because of the corporators but because of the commissioners who exerted pressure on the former warning of grave funds crunch.

 With the government clarifying that its share is only a loan component and grant of the funds received through the scheme itself has become a burden.Since the Council has only nine months time left, it has lots of things to do. The Council is yet to find a solution to avert frequent inundation of the Old City due to lack of proper drainage system. At the time of entering into an agreement for the JNNURM , the Corporation had identified the presence of 1.48 lakh tenants and the need to construct 28,000 houses, but it could only complete 3,872 houses till now.