Vijayawada Municipal Corporation has a new Commissioner with Gorrela Suvarna Panda Das assuming office on Wednesday.
He inherited a bad financial health of the organisation, which he proposed to study in-depth in the days to come and find a long-lasting solution for it, but was quick to say that he did not have quick-fix answers for the problems and had to study all of them in detail.
After taking over from outgoing Municipal Commissioner Mohammed Abdul Azeem formally on Wednesday evening, Mr. Das, an engineering graduate and IIM-Bangalore management product, said that he requires the cooperation of the State government and people of the city to take forward the development activity.
He hoped that his seven-month stint at the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board was a good learning experience to understand the water supply problems and can immediately identify the gaps in Vijayawada too to find a solution. In relation to other matters, he said that he would require some time to react on them.
Financial crisis
The financial crisis in the VMC has been worrying the officials here and when the new Commissioner was posed the question as to how he expected to overcome this problem, he said that with government grants and financial support it was difficult to run the corporation.
Mr. Das said that the outgoing Commissioner Mr. Azeem had briefed him on several issues in the corporation and that he would concentrate on all of them and did not have a particular priority as of now.
When asked, the outgoing official was of the opinion that the State government should make the payments through the 010-Head of Account so that VMC could save Rs.200 crore.
‘600 cr. can be saved’
“I am still of the strong opinion that the 10,008 houses to be taken up for construction by the VMC be transferred to AP Housing Board for better execution and saving Rs.400 crore for the corporation,” said Mr. Azeem. About Rs.600 crore thus saved can be used for taking other developmental programmes in the city and planned projects can be completed on time.
The new incumbent said that he would not comment on the finances unless he saw all the details and would later decide on how to raise funds or how to get them.
