Ahead of the G20 summit meetings in Visakhapatnam on 28 and 29 March, the Greater Visakha Municipal Corporation (GVMC) has done some “greening” exercise as part of a beautification drive by covering up slums with green tarpaulin.

The so-called greening drive by the civic body has taken place mostly along the route from the airport in ASR Nagar in Thatichetlapalem.

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Retired IAS officer and activist EAS Sarma, who shared photographs of the spot, pointed out that the slum cluster included one of 60 Chenchus, a particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) who live in subhuman conditions.

The civic body has spent some Rs150 crore in its beautification campaign to impress the delegates arriving at the port city. Sarma slammed the civic body saying, “Beautification is a euphemism for enriching contractors.”

He went on to add, “The latest gimmick of GVMC is that it is greening the slums lying along the route from the airport to the city. The slums are a standing testimony to GVMC’s and the government’s failure to implement slum welfare programmes year after year. Even in the latest Budget approved by GVMC, instead of providing 40 per cent of the budgeted amounts for slum development, the Corporation has allocated funds for contractor-driven works, betraying the magnitude of corruption that exists in it.”

He also pointed out that GVMC has carried out eviction drive displacing hundreds of street-side hawkers and vendors, damaging their shops disregarding Central law that had conferred special rights to them.

“Many of the vendors belong to the most disadvantaged sections of society. This is nothing but an outright onslaught on their human rights. The GVMC violated the environmental laws, especially the CRZ norms on the Vizag beach, damaging valuable marine resources,” alleged Sarma.

He pointed out that the GVMC act of covering the slum of the Chenchus even attracted penal provisions of the law to prevent atrocities on Scheduled Tribes (ST).

It may be noted here that bare patches on the beautiful Rushikonda were allegedly covered with green geo mats prior to the Global Investor Summit at the beginning of March.