HYDERABAD: As many as 150 corporators and very few officials of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) will embark on a study tour across the country in September 2024.
Their trips are likely to cost more than Rs 1.25 crore. They will go on tours for 10 days each in three different batches from the first week of next month.
The civic body would spend Rs 80,000 per person covering 10 days, subject to the condition of filing the observations they made in their study tours. The sum of Rs 80,000 per person includes airfares, transportation, accommodation, food, and other facilities.
The GHMC Corporators have proposed to visit Delhi, Agra, Jaipur in Phase-I, Indore and Lucknow in Phase-II, Assam and Guwahati in Phase-III from September 1 to 30, 2024 @ 50 members in each group along with one coordinator in the cadre of Assistant Municipal Commissioner. They are expected to study the best practices being followed in sanitation and engineering road works and other policies being adopted in the Municipal Corporations of Indore, Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Guwahati.
The proposal will bew placed before the GHMC Standing Committee which will meet on August 22, 2024, to accord permission to the corporators in their quest for wisdom.
Presently, the civic body is reeling under a financial crunch and is finding it difficult even to pay salaries to its employees and yet the civic body wants to spend the taxpayers’ money on sending corporators on a “study tour.”
“These members are supposed to study the best practices being adopted by the cities in sanitation, road works and other subjects suitable for Hyderabad. We are surprised at the choice of destinations. Only god knows if such trips are of any help in improving the conditions and further development. Such study tours in the past, including international trips, served no purpose, as no study reports on best practices were ever submitted,” one official said.