'Negligent' staff fail Hyderabad upkeep

Hyderabad: The Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD) principal secretary Arvind Kumar expressed his displeasure over the lack of involvement of certain civic officials in the upkeep of the city.

He complained about the abuse of road medians, encroachments on footpaths, and the casual approach of certain officials which amounts to dereliction of duty.

Mr Kumar held a review meeting on Wednesday with Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) officials wherein he brought up the urgency of dealing with sanitation and encroachment-related issues.

He stressed that assistant city planners must take action against illegal encroachments, and warned that any negligence in terms of sanitation will be dealt with appropriately.

He observed that the sanitation staff wasn’t showing up on the field regularly as a result of which, garbage wasn’t being collected as per the schedule and the streets were being left unkempt for days on end.

He asked the deputy commissioners to regularly visit their respective circles and personally supervise sanitation works.

Mr Arvind Kumar further issued orders suspending the assistant city planner Subash for alleged negligence of his duties. It may be recalled that Mr Subash had recently failed in his duty of displacing the footpath encroachment near Begumpet metro station.

GHMC commissioner M. Dana Kishore asked the civic body officials to ensure an improvement in city sanitation in a week.