KT Rama Rao warns newly elected councilors against corruption

Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) working president and state Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao has called upon newly elected councillors and corporators to create excellent urban infrastructure during their tenure without resorting to corrupt practices. He warned them that the government will not spare if anyone was found willfully delaying granting building permits.

“If someone building a house in a street, the first to reach there are the officers and councilors, asking the owners for their share. This culture has to stop. If you are not ready to change that age old practice, then Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is in no mood to accept that,” he said.

He reminded them that he had already asked every candidate before the elections to read and understand the new Municipal Act and then get into the election arena. “If you commit a mistake, you are bound to lose your position. With 92 per cent of municipalities on TRS side, there is no question of differentiating anyone on party lines. All the people are ours,” he told the newly elected municipal



councilors who met him at Telangana Bhavan on Thursday.

“So don’t try to get a recommendation from your MLA or Minister to forgive you because I will see that you are sacked. So don’t commit mistakes and don’t bring shame on you and us,” he said.

The Minister, explaining the self-certification clauses in the Act, said that rules of building permissions have been simplified. “Building rules are no rocket science that you need to study the plan for months. Then why delay granting permits for months?” he asked them. He also said that even erring citizens will not be spared as per the new Act.

He invited suggestions from the new chairpersons and councilors on improving further the Act and urban infrastructure. “There are engineers and even IT professionals who won municipal elections. There is a young lady preparing for IAS exams who got elected as a councilor. Thoug reservation for women is 50 per cent, we allocated 57 per cent seats to women,” Rama Rao, said adding that TRS was probably the only party that allocated general category seats to SCs and STs.