Swachh Bharat goes for a toss

The GHMC turns a blind eye to mushrooming banners, posters and flexis ignoring even a High Court order

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), in order to please the political bosses, seems to have thrown rules to the winds. Paying scant respect to the recent High Court order, the GHMC is turning a blind eye and refuses to remove unauthorised flexis, cut-outs and statues of political leaders and posters in the city. While the old flexis continue to cause problems for the road users, the entire city has now been painted pink as part of the TRS Plenary to be held on Friday.

Call it sycophancy of the supporters or sheer arrogance of the ruling party, whichever may be the case, main roads such as Khairtabad, Begumpet, Parade Grounds and Raj Bhavan are full of posters with the colour pink ruling the roost. What is ironical is the build-up is being planned by running over the very idea of a clean city bereft of posters and banners on the roadside. In the process, the civic authorities seem to have given the concept of Swachh Bharat a go by.

When asked about the mushrooming of banners and posters on roadsides and the rampant practice, S Harikrishna, additional commissioner, revenue, GHMC said, “In the normal course permissions are given for a week to put up the posters. The political parties are supposed to remove by them after the event is over. But it is never done. Though the corporation should book cases against the political parties in such instances, it refuses to do so and there is no precedent in the recent past of booking any cases against anyone. Sometimes, the GHMC staff themselves remove the bunters and plastic flags.”

Ashwin Nallari, secretary of United Federation of Resident Welfare Associations, Alwal Circle, says, “In January, GHMC removed flexis, banners and posters after the High Court order but subsequently it never bothered to take action against anyone.”In fact the GHMC is supposed to give details of the banners, flexis and hoarding it had removed on a regular basis to the High Court. Sources say that the civic body has been complying with this rule on paper but it appears that there is mismatch between the claims and reality.

It is almost an unsaid rule in the corporation that cases would not be booked but the enforcement wing of the GHMC would do a clean-up act periodically. An official of the corporation said that the cases have to be booked at the circle level by the deputy commissioners and no-one wants to take a risk against local politicians who supposedly have connections with the top brass.

However in the past when TDP was in power in the undivided Andhra Pradesh, the then civic authorities used to ensure that all the flexis and banners were removed and in some cases they had even issued notices to some political parties. Even if the GHMC used to remove the plastic flags and flexis, it used to charge even the ruling party.It now remains to be seen if the GHMC would take a leaf from the past and see that the flexis, banner, hoardings etc are removed or not.