KARIMNAGAR: In villages across Telangana where women have been elected as sarpanches, the husband calling the shots and acting like the de-facto village head is more the norm than the exception. In the relatively ‘urban’ Karimnagar, however, one would expect things to be different. But the response to an RTI filed by local NGO Loksatta Udyama Samstha has revealed otherwise.
The scenario is such: The Municipal Corporation of Karimnagar (MCK) had organised a study tour for the local representatives of Karimnagar from May 3 to May 6 last year. The tour was held with the intention to analyse the 24/7 water supply scheme in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation of Maharashtra. The civic body had expected the representatives to study the scheme, and subsequently replicate it in Karimnagar. But alas, a majority of the corporators did not even attend the tour, instead letting the ‘men of the family’ take over for them.
In the special AC buses allocated for the tour, 45 persons including the local MLA, MLC, mayor, commissioner and 29 out of the 50 corporators were expected to go. Among them, however, as many as 14 who actually ended up attending the tour were husbands or sons of women corporators. According to the RTI response, the said 14 persons have been identified as Siguru Ravi, Vydula Anjan Kumar, Edla Ashok, Md Abbas Shami, Gottimukkula Venkataramana, B Srinivas, S Srinivas, N Yadaiah, G Murali, T Manohar, Ch Buchhi Reddy, Ch Harishankar, G Mahesh and Battula Satish.
For the study tour, the MCK had spent an amount of Rs 5.50 lakh. The expenditure for each person came around Rs 12,222. Loksatta Udyama Samstha district president N Srinivas on Monday wrote a letter to the Chief Secretary, requesting that the expenses incurred by MCK be recovered.