Officials told to take sanitation issues seriously

Hyderabad: Principal Secretary for Municipal Administration and Urban Development Arvind Kumar has expressed dissatisfaction on the state of sanitation programs in the city, footpaths and construction of unauthorized building. Arvind Kumar issued orders suspending the Assistant City Planner Subhash for alleged negligence of his duties on Wednesday.

It may be recalled that the ACP had failed in his duty of removing footpath encroachments near Begumpet Metro Station recently. He told the Principal Secretary that he has not noticed the encroachments. Arvind Kumar immediately ordered for his suspension and expressed unhappiness and displeasure over the lack of involvement of certain civic officials in the upkeep of the city.

Addressing a meeting of Zonal Commissioners, planning officials and AMOs of GHMC at the CDMA office on Wednesday, Arvind Kumar said that issues relating to sanitation and removal of encroachments should be addressed immediately. Road medians are being abused, encroachments on footpaths are not being stopped, and there is a casual approach on the part of certain officials, which amounts to dereliction of duty, he said.

Unauthorised bill boards should be removed immediately. The Assistant City Planners should take action against illegal encroachments. He warned that any negligence on sanitation will be viewed seriously. The sanitation staffs is not seen in the field, proper maintenance of sanitation is not being done, worker attendance is poor and there is no monitoring of workers attendance, he said.

The streets are kept unclean for days and the garbage is not being lifted regularly, he said, and asked the deputy commissioners to regularly visit their respective circles and personally supervise sanitation works. GHMC Commissioner Dana Kishore asked the officials to ensure that there is a clear visibility in improvement of sanitation in a week. Additional commissioners Hari Chandana, Shruthi Ojha, Sandeep Jha, CCP Devender Reddy and other officials attended the meeting.