The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Vijayawada News : Whose constituents are they?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 30, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada

Whose constituents are they?

By G. V. Ramana Rao

VIJAYAWADA, DEC. 29. This is an interesting story of a municipal division that does not exist physically, but it has a corporator serving its electorate.

For citizens of the 17th division, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) had an answer to all their problems. It provided them the means to leave behind a life of poverty and squalor and go on to lead a life of independence and freedom.As many as 1,250 families lived precariously on a small strip of land between the Bandar Canal and a road leading to the busy Pandit Nehru Bus Station. They did not have any of the civic amenities that other citizens usually enjoyed.

The VMC relocated all the families living on the canal bunds, the entire populace of 17th division, to the new Rajarajeswaripet colony on the banks of the Budameru rivulet. Each beneficiary was allotted a 40-square yard plot and provided Rs 25,000 as a loan and an equal amount as subsidy. They were given an additional Rs 2,500 for constructing an independent latrine. About Rs 14 crores was sent to construct nearly 3,000 pucca houses in the colony. The colony grew with more families from Sambamurthy Road (that is from Ryve's Canal Bunds) and G.S.Raju Road (that is Eluru Canal bund) being relocated in the new Rajarajeswaripet colony. The 17th division also grew along with the new colony.

Joint venture

The VMC, in a joint venture with an NGO, Care and Share, built a school that is providing education to 850 children. The site belongs to the corporation and the NGO constructed the building and is running the school.

Yerubothu Venkata Ramana Rao, a candidate of the Telugu Desam Party, was elected corporator of the division 20 months before all the families living near the Pandit Nehru Bus station were shifted. The 17th division was a stronghold of the Communist Party of India (CPI). The CPI candidates have been winning from the division for the past four terms, but in the last municipal elections, Ramana Rao was able to wrest it from them.

After the corporation spent huge sums to develop new Rajarajeswaripet, Congress corporators with divisions adjacent to the colony staked their claim over it and made bids to annex the relocated areas into their divisions.

Ramana Rao, however, fought the issue saying the budget allotted to his division was spent in the colony. The Election Commission also conducted the Assembly elections recognising the new colony as 17th division and conducted polling in three booths.

The infrastructure required is being developed at a good pace.

All the 12-foot-wide roads in five of the seven blocks in the colony have been laid with cement concrete. The 20, 30, 40 and 50 feet wide roads were gravel roads that required black topping.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh

News Update

Stories in this Section

Whose constituents are they?

Inter-collegiate festival opens

`The man with no division'

RTC union threatens strike from January 12

Five held on robbery charge

Tsunami toll touches 35 in Krishna district

Legislators' gesture

Around the City

In Vijayawada Today