Vizag G20 row: When the then US President Donald Trump visited Gujarat in 2020, a brick wall was hastily erected and besmeared with beautiful pictures depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's close relations with America. Evidently, the half-kilometre brick wall was built to hide the slum from the world media. This had triggered a row within the country and abroad.
A similar situation was again witnessed in Andhra Pradesh's Vishakhapatnam where the Greater Visakha Municipal Corporation (GVMC) covered slums along the road from the airport to the city with green shade nets ahead of the G20 summit. Notably, several top world dignitaries are scheduled to reach the port city tommorow to hold meetings. This has again triggered controversy in the state, where a former bureaucrat and activist raised questions over the government's intention.
"GVMC and the government's failure to implement slum welfare programmes"
By hiding the slums behind green tarpaulin sheets, GVMC hopes to hide them from the eyes of the foreign delegates, said former bureaucrat and activist E.A.S. Sarma.
The retired IAS officer said that the slums are a standing testimony to GVMC and the government's failure to implement slum welfare programmes year after year. Even in the latest budget approved by the GVMC, instead of providing 40 per cent of the budgeted amount for slum development, the Corporation has allocated funds for contractor-driven works, betraying the magnitude of corruption that exists in it, Sarma said.
Sarma, who released a few pictures of slums being covered, said in a statement that they depict the pitiable condition of a slum cluster, including a slum in which a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), about 60 Chenchus live in sub-human conditions. This slum is in ASR Nagar at Thatichetlapalem on the airport road.
"GVMC's contemptuous attitude"
"This is nothing but a mockery of the state and GVMC's contemptuous attitude towards the most disadvantaged groups. Strictly, this attracts the penal provisions of the law to prevent atrocities on Scheduled Tribes," he said.
A few days ago, GVMC had displaced hundreds of street-side hawkers and vendors, damaging their shops, in violation of the Central law that has conferred special rights on them. Many of the vendors belong to the most disadvantaged sections of society. This is nothing but an outright onslaught on their human rights, Sarma said.
(With inputs from IANS)
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