HYDERABAD: Former city mayor and State BJP vice-president Banda Karthika Reddy questioned the government’s move to combine 27 nearby urban local bodies with the GHMC at a time when the corporation’s elected council was scheduled to serve until February of next year. Speaking before the media with party secretaries Bandaru Vijayalaxmi and Baddam Mahipal Reddy, Karthika Reddy charged that the Congress government had neglected GHMC’s finances, pointing out that no money had been given to the company in the two years since the party took office. When Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy announced that each corporator will receive ₹1 crore for development projects, she questioned how they would use the money given their limited time.
In contrast to the trend in cities like Delhi, where municipal corporations were being split up into smaller units for better governance, Karthika Reddy accused the Chief Minister of acting like a real estate agent and said that the merger decision was made after conducting a scientific study. She also questioned the purpose of the HILT policy, arguing that it was more in line with real estate interests than the declared objective of moving polluting companies outside the boundaries of the Outer Ring Road (ORR).
