After the rain stopped on Saturday, chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and some fellow ministers decided to take a sympathy tour of the city but came up against a bitter response from people whose houses had been flooded by the downpour of the night before.
Residents in low-lying localities around the city bitterly complained about the lackadiscal attitude of the GHMC officials for being of no help to them. In just Khairatabad, 400 houses in localities such as Maruthi Nagar, Raj Nagar, CIB Quarters, and BJR Nagar took in 4 ft or more of water.
As the chief minister arrived to see the damage caused, the residents raised slogans against the GHMC for not attending to their grievances. They had not eaten or slept since Friday night. Their children could not go to school, and they had lost all their household articles.
Khairatabad Corporator Shaik Shareef told chief minister that the people were particularly angry with GHMC engineers for the sorry state of affairs in Khairatabad.
The corporator said that despite submitting several representations in the last two years to the GHMC authroties to desilt the nalas or widen their beds, no solutions were taken up by the authorities.
Had action been taken earlier, such a problem would not have arised, he said. The chief minister promised to the residents that pending works in the ward would be taken up soon and completed at the earliest. He then and left.