State govt. passes bill on merger of villages with MCK

The impending merger of adjoining 13 villages with the Municipal Corporation of Karimnagar (MCK) has received a thrust after Karimnagar was upgraded into a Smart City, with the State government passing the bill in the Assembly on Thursday.

The merger was pending since the upgradation of Karimnagar Municipality into a Corporation in 2005 following opposition from the villagers. Recently, the State government took the decision to merge the villages with MCK in order to develop the town. As majority of villages were agriculture based, the villagers stated that with the merger the taxes would increase, employment to farm workers under NREGS will be denied and there will be no developmental works concerning the villages. The local bodies’ representatives such as sarpanches, ward members, MPTC members and ZPTC members were also opposing the merger of villages as they would be losing their power.

The State government had decided to merge Padmanagar, Chintakunta, Malkapur, Rekurthi, Seetharampur, Arepalli, Theegalaguttapalli, Vallampahad, Bommakal, Manakondur, Sadasivapalli, Thimmapur and Alugunur villages. However, the government had included the merger of Manakondur and Thimmapur mandal headquarters with the MCK. The elected representatives including the ruling TRS leaders were up in arms against the merger of Manakondur and Thimmapur mandal headquarters, which were more than eight km distance from the Karimnagar town.

On the other hand, TRS Municipal corporator Y. Sunil Rao has hailed the State government’s decision. However, BJP district president K. Srinivas Reddy opposed the merger of villages stating that there would be no development as was evident with the merger of some villages and urged the government to rethink its decision.

YSRCP Karimnagar district president K. Nagesh has given a call to observe bandh on April 3. He said that the govt. had taken a unilateral decision without consulting the villagers on the merger.