Hyderabad: The Rs 1-crore gift for “best colony” in GHMC had recently made news, but amounts awarded to colonies in the earlier competition have still not been released by the GHMC.
The competitions had been conducted during the Biodiversity conference, in 2011. Five colonies from each zone were made winners and awards of Rs 10 lakh were announced. Residents said the GHMC often announced these competitions which citizens took seriously but the prize money never reached the winners .
The GHMC, during CoP-11, had announced five colonies as “Best Societies” for their environmentally-sound ecologies and promised Rs 10 lakh worth of civic works as the reward. But not a single initiative has been taken up, complained the award winners. For example Shanthi Nagar-Masab Tank was a winner from Central Zone. Netajinagar and PVNR were also winners.
Ashwin Kumar, president of Shanthi Nagar, Masab Tank, said, “The GHMC had held competitions for Clean and Green Hyderabad. From the five zones, three colonies were picked as winners during M.T. Krishna Babu’s term. The first price was Rs 15 lakh, the second was Rs 10 lakh and third Rs 5 lakh. When the residents welfare associations asked for the prize money, the commissioner said works worth that amount would be carried out. For five years, no funds have been released.”
G.V. Reddy, president of Netajinagar, said, “Since our colony was declared a winner, we submitted a proposal for roads, repair of the walkers’ way and fencing of the colony park. The GHMC had promised to spend a fixed amount per colony to develop a park, a children’s play area and a small sitting area for senior citizens. The deal was that GHMC would put in 70 per cent of the funds while the residents would provide the remaining 30 per cent and also maintain the parks. However nothing happened.
