Residents of seven villages, Borgam (P), Madhavanagar, Goopanpally, Mubaraknagar, Khanapur, Kalur and Sarangapur surrounding the city have been strongly opposing the government’s decision to merge them with the Nizamabad Municipal Corporation (NMC).
They complained that despite the fact that the High Court had ordered a stay on the decision and the tenure of the elected bodies of the gram panchayats being expired on August 1, the person in-charges or special officers were yet to be appointed for these villages. “We have not been getting proper reply from the authorities on the non-appointment of special officers for these villages. We oppose the appointment of NMC officers as special officers. People are facing difficulties in the absence of officers,” said TPCC secretary S. Bhooma Reddy, belonging to the Borgam (P). The residents have been expressing their protest in different forms every day, staging dharnas and rastaroko and submitting memorandums to the authorities.
They are afraid of losing employment under the NREGS after the merger with an urban civic body, since the programme brought a huge amount of money to the villages in the slack season. “We have hundreds of job cards and if the village is merged in the corporation we will lose them,” said Bandla Satyavathi Gangadhar, former Sarpanch of Goopanpally. Besides, execution of works would get delayed as no one would be accountable to the residents.
The District Panchayat Officer Krishnamoorthy said: “We have appointed special officers for the seven villages and sent for the approval of the Government. The Collector also written to the MAUD department on the prevailing conditions in them, he said.
