The officials, senior and junior, in the Port City neither have the drive to work nor the commitment to serve. A team of Inter-institutional researchers, who planned to deploy instruments in the sea to study the underwater dynamics as part of the process to help evolve a solution to beach erosion, realised it the hard way. Acting on the directions of the Chief Ministers Office and Chairman, Visakhapatnam Port Trust, the academics met a senior official of the Port who not only did not extend any help but acted as though he was doing them a favour by listening to them. Finally, the Port Trust Chairman persuaded a private operator to help them. On the day the team set off on a catamaran to deploy their instruments in the sea, the official deputed by Commissioner GVMC to help them did not even bother to turn up leaving the research team to explain to the watch and ward staff that they were on a Government mission and they would not ‘pay’ for permissions.
Generosity at its best?
Even as the process of filing of nominations is on for the Legislative Council’s East and West Godavari districts teachers’ constituency, grape wine has it that two probable contestants have already started distributing costly gifts to woo the voters. Over 21,000 teachers from both the districts will cast their vote in the election and heads of two corporate educational groups, who are in the poll fray, are taking the election very seriously.
Rumours are doing round that one of them plans to distribute either a silver ornament or a smart phone gadget each to the voters, while the other may dole out a gold coin weighting 4 grams to each voter. As the polling is a month ahead, one can expect many more rumours that’ll keep the public bemused.
Private function
The visit of Union Minister of Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu to inaugurate the manufacturing facility of a pharma giant was treated as a ‘private’ function and the district administration did not extend the normal attention paid to a visit by a Minister.
It is a totally different issue that three Cabinet Ministers of the state were in attendance. As a result, it was left to the BJP to take care of the media. This was in total contrast to the way the administration goes overboard on every tour and inspection by a Minister from the city. The other extreme is that a city-based PR outfit issues statements by the Minister even before the DPRO releases it.
(With inputs from G. S. Subrahmanyam in Visakhapatnam and K.N. Murali Sankar in Kakinada)
