GHMC elections: No flood relief, no vote, say shop owners

HYDERABAD: The expression of despair in the countenance of Mohammed Zubair, a student who also runs a shop in flood-ravaged Hafiz Baba Nagar, was unmistakable as he described the problems he had to face while arranging for finances to reopen his shop after last month’s rains.

Heavy rains had lashed Hyderabad in October, leaving behind a trail of destruction across the city. Although life is gradually returning to normal in Hafiz Baba Nagar of Chandrayangutta after weeks of cleaning operations, many residents, who claim to have not received any help (financial or otherwise) from the government, are vowing to abstain from voting in the GHMC polls.

Zubair is one of them. He runs a multipurpose shop, which along with several others on the Balapur main road got inundated when the Gurram Cheruvu tank breached due to the rains.

But Zubair and the owners of many shops adjacent to his have not received the Rs 10,000 financial relief from the State government, leaving them with a bitter taste for the authorities, including incumbent AIMIM corporator Abdul Wahab. 

“I had to spend nearly Rs 40,000 on repairs and to reopen my shop. I did not get a single rupee from the government. When the corporator had visited the area, I asked him about the flood relief. He said everyone had received it, but I told him that I did not. Nothing was done about it,” Zubair said. 

He then approached NGOs for money, but they too did not agree to help him, saying that his shop is located at a height and was not as affected as the houses in the by-lanes of Hafiz Baba Nagar.

“It took me two weeks to clean the mud that had entered the shop with the floodwaters. I had to replace all the damaged goods. I took a loan of around Rs 8,000 from a bank and had to borrow some more from my friends. I am not going to vote for anyone,” he said.

Similarly, the owner of KGN Workshop, a car repairing unit in the area, has suffered a loss of over Rs  1 lakh as floodwaters damaged his customers’ vehicles.

Now, with customers hounding him for their cars, he is at a grave loss.

“Nobody (authorities) had come to my workshop to offer any help. I am trying to make my customers understand that I will repair their cars in time. But I am not going to vote this time,” he said.