The announcement of constitution of Satavahana Urban Development Authority (SUDA) by the State government, which rekindled hopes among the people of Karimnagar town, has remained a non-starter in spite of its announcement on October 24 last year.
The government issued G.O. No. 270 for the constitution of SUDA with Collector Sarfaraz Ahmad as its chairman and Municipal Commissioner K Shashanka as its vice-chairman. People of the town cheered following the announcement of SUDA for all-round and systematic development of the town along with the proposed Smart City project and merger of adjoining 71 villages.
But, it has been over four months now and there is no office for SUDA nor any meeting was held for the formulation of guidelines over the merger of villages and its development.
In turn, there is no constitution of SUDA general body by the government in spite of several aspirants doing hectic lobbying for the coveted SUDA chairperson post.
On the other hand, the adjoining villages, which are to be merged with SUDA, have raised a banner of revolt against the move stating that they would lose out on implementation of NREGS, besides increased taxes.
It may be recalled that after the upgradation of Karimnagar Municipality into a corporation in 2005, the authorities planned to merge the adjoining 10 villages with the Karimnagar Municipal Corporation (MCK), but in vain.
The local bodies representatives, including the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi leaders, are opposing the merger of villages into SUDA stating that they would be denied of agriculture loans, employment under NREGS and other benefits under the grama panchayats.
The existing MCK., which has jurisdiction 24.5 km radius with a population of 3.15 lakh, would now be spread over an area of 528 sq. km radius with a population of 6.12 lakh by including the 71 adjoining villages from nine mandals viz., Karimnagar, Karimnagar rural, Kothapalli, Choppadandi, Manakondur, Thimmapur, Ganneruvaram, Gangadhara and Ramadugu.
