A day after a photo of Telangana's Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD) Minister KT Rama Rao with an octogenarian woman went viral, the latter said that her grievance had been addressed.
“Long live KTR. May God give him strength to help many more people. I am very happy that he has immediately responded to my grievance and addressed it. The young minister is very quick in action (sic),” said Seshanavaratnam, the woman who stole the show at Friday’s Mana Nagaram or 'Town Hall' meeting.
At the meeting, a frail Seshanavaratnam gathered the strength to walk up to the minister with the help of his personal staff and told KTR about her grievances.
The octogenarian said the owners of a restaurant in her locality troubled the residents a lot, and their efforts to get the issue resolved were not successful.
"Yesterday, I went to Mana Nagaram program of KTR and he was kind enough to pay special attention to me and direct the officials to look into the problem,” Seshanavaratnam said.
KTR then asked Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) West Zone Zonal Commissioner Harichandana Dasari and Chief City Planner Devender Reddy to act immediately on the issue. A team of officials from the GHMC inspected the complainant's residence in KPHB Colony, where they found that the kitchen of the 'Kritunga Restaurant' was being operated in a closed down lower-income group (LIG) residential apartment.
The officials who carried out the inspection said that heat and a pungent odour that was being generated due to the kitchen had become extremely unbearable for occupants of the other apartments in the same complex.
The huge gas cylinders used for cooking also posed danger, officials said.
As the operations of the restaurant were in violation of regulations, the GHMC team closed it down and sealed the premises. Harichandana said that the restaurant did not have a trade licence and running the kitchen was in violation of fire safety norms.
Seshanavaratnam's son Gopi said the restaurant had been a problem for six years. The restaurant's management would allegedly cite a court order which had nothing to do with the premises when questioned, according to Gopi.
He added that his mother and the residents of other apartments were very happy after the kitchen was closed.
Mana Nagaram
Speaking at the third edition of Mana Nagaram programme, a public interaction session which was held in Hyderabad on Friday, KTR sought people’s participation in transforming Hyderabad into a global city.
Pointing out that GHMC staff had recently removed blankets and sleeping mats from a stormwater drain in Ameerpet recently, KTR appealed to the citizens to be responsible and sensitive towards civic issues. He called upon the citizens to use separate bins for solid and liquid waste.
KTR also said that the government was planning to purchase 500 electric buses to address the pollution problem in the city. The traditional diesel buses would be phased out over a period of time.
He said that the GHMC already had pressed such electric buses into service for its garbage collection.