Bats for cabinet rank

Hyderabad: If rumours are believed, the newly elected Mayor Bonthu Rammohan has reportedly sought the status of cabinet rank. According to unconfirmed reports, the mayor and deputy mayor Baba Fasiuddin have reportedly furnished a long wish-list to the officials seeking various facilities.

It is learnt that both the leaders want their security to be scaled up through deployment of additional gunmen. Besides these, they want their vehicles to be replaced with new Fortuners SUV vehicles and asked the GHMC to bear other expenses, including lunch for nearly 50 persons, whenever they attend the office.

Although no demand has been made in writing, they enquired with the higher officials on the facilities they are entitled to as mayor and deputy mayor. Amused by their demands, the officials reportedly told the mayor and deputy mayor that they were not entitled to most of the demands.

A senior official said such queries were common from leaders who get elected first time to the top posts. He said that most of the queries are out of curiosity. A GHMC mayor is entitled to a monthly salary of nearly Rs 50,000 while his deputy gets about Rs 25,000. The corporators get Rs 6,000 salary per month and none of them are entitled for any sitting allowance.