Andhra Pradesh - Eluru   

Decks cleared for panchayats’ merger

ELURU: The Municipal Corporation of Eluru (MCE) on Saturday resolved to merge the surrounding seven gram panchayats with the city limits. Surprisingly, little discussion was witnessed while the council passing the resolution at its meeting on the crucial issue even as the residents from these villages were opposed to the move by expressing apprehensions that they would have to bear more tax burden under the regime of the municipal corporation than in the present gram panchayats.

Passage of the resolution became hassle-free when there was no opposition from the TDP. It was only E. Tata Rao of the TDP who spoke for a while on the subject. Mayor T. Rama Rao, who chaired the meeting, gave little scope for discussion on the issue by adjourning the House immediately after the resolution was read out. When Maganti Hemasundar, who got elected on the TDP ticket and is presently sailing with the Congress, appealed to the council to pass the resolution unanimously as “it’s the wish of our MLA (Kalikrishna Srinivas),” all the members regardless of party affiliation supported the move.

When Mr. Tata Rao sought to know the basis on which the merger proposal was made, from the officials, Commissioner K. Venkateswarlu informed the members that the State government had issued a GO allowing all the village panchayats located within the radius of 3 km from the corporation for merger with the MCE.

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