Visakhapatnam: This is probably the first time that the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) has been functioning sans a Commissioner for a long time.

Although district Collector MN Harendhira Prasad is heading the corporation as in-charge Commissioner, a full-fledged Commissioner is yet to be appointed.

Even as the State government is considering Visakhapatnam as the financial capital, IT and tourism hub, depriving the corporation of a full-fledged Commissioner comes as a surprise for many.

As a result, the administration of the civic body has gone haywire. Without a dedicated Commissioner, accountability of the GVMC staff has gone for a toss.

With the Collector already shouldering a number of responsibilities, focusing much on the GVMC has become a difficult task.

The alliance that was quite proactive in unseating former Mayor G Hari Venkata Kumari and former Deputy Mayor Jiyyani Sridhar is not evincing keen interest in appointing the Commissioner for the GVMC, point out YSRCP leaders.

Even as the Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development P Narayana and 20-Point programme chairman Lanka Dinakar announced that a Commissioner would soon be appointed for the GVMC in their earlier visits to Visakhapatnam, steps are yet to be taken in this regard.

During the YSRCP’s tenure, the GVMC Commissioner used to get transferred at frequent intervals. This happened especially so when the Commissioner refused to dance to the tunes of the key leaders of the YSRCP.

Apparently, there were several scams during the YSRCP tenure amounting to thousands of crores of rupees, including the TDR scam in Visakhapatnam. A full-fledged Commissioner for the corporation is required to expose these scams.

But why does the NDA government not paying attention to appointing a Commissioner for a long time after the previous Commissioner P. Sampath Kumar got transferred in January, just after six months of assuming charge, turns out to be a million-dollar question.