Close shave for Visakhapatnam mayor, team as landslides rock Kullu

VISAKHAPATNAM: It was a close shave for Vizag mayor G Hari Venkata Kumari and 60 other corporators when boulders and stones came rolling down just a few metres away from the vehicles they were travelling in near Kullu in Himachal Pradesh on Saturday. The mayor and corporators, who are on a ‘study tour’ to various smart cities of the county since August 16, have so far visited Shimla, Delhi, and Kullu to study their municipal corporations’ best practices in sanitation, waste management, etc.
They got stranded on the highway since 1 am on Friday midnight following heavy traffic jam due to a series of landslides.Even after they resumed their itinerary on Saturday afternoon after partial traffic clearance, the free fall of boulders paralysed traffic movement again. In fact, the landslide occurred just a hair’s breadth away from the vehicles of the Vizag corporators on Saturday. After a day-long ordeal, they managed to reach Mandi on Saturday evening, which is about four hours away from Chandigarh.
According to sources, there were heated arguments and confrontation between a few corporators on Friday night over poor management of the tour and facilities. One corporator developed serious breathlessness, while another suffered from vomitings. The four vehicles which were supposed to leave Manali at around 9 pm on Friday, started towards Kullu only in the early hours of Saturday. Citing inclement weather and health issues, about 25 corporators stayed back in Manali on Friday night, while seven other corporators took flights to Chandigarh from Kullu on Saturday morning.
GVMC commissioner G Lakshmisha told TOI he coordinated with the respective district collectors of Kullu and Mandi, who quickly responded and reached out to the stranded group.
“We also coordinated with Praveen Prakash, principal resident commissioner of AP Bhavan in Delhi for supply of food and other amenities. We took utmost care of all 38 women corporators who were travelling in the buses. The corporators have already reached Mandi and some have reached Chandigarh,” he said.
The ‘study tour’ got mired in controversies ever since it was planned. Alleging it would only lead to wastage of 1.3 crore of public money, CPM corporator B Ganga Rao skipped the tour. Jana Sena corporator P Murthy Yadav also stayed away from the tour. The GVMC council approved this agenda item without any discussion during its meeting on August 10. A total of 160 people, including the corporators, co-option members, and family members of some of the corporators went for the tour.