Vijayawada: Vindicating the claims of municipal commissioner Puli Srinivasulu , NTR district collector Dr G Lakshmisha reimbursed 3.69 crore to the Guntur Municipal Corporation‘s (GMC) account towards the amount spent during the Budameru floods in Vijayawada city in last Sep.
Following the instructions from state govt, GMC commissioner Puli Srinivasulu spent 9.22 crore from the civic body’s funds for emergency relief measures including supply of food, water and other essentials during the floods. Although, the State had promised to reimburse the amount, city mayor Kavati Manohar Naidu and deputy mayor Bala Vajrababu of YSRCP made serious allegations against the municipal commissioner. They alleged that the amount has been illegally routed from the civic body without permission from the council.
However, Srinivasulu strongly denied the charges saying that he had utilised the amount following the instructions of state govt. He also clarified that they have submitted the accounts through the district collector after completing the audit for every penny. After submission of the bills, the NTR district collector had also got the accounts verified through another auditor and confirmed the expenditure as genuine.
Subsequently, state govt issued a govt order (GO) asking the NTR district collector to reimburse the total amount to GMC.
“We have received 3.69 crore from NTR district collector today in the first spell from the total amount spent by the GMC. We are expecting NTR district collector to clear the balance amount of 5.53 crore shortly,” said Srinivasulu.
The GMC commissioner added that the mayor and deputy mayor had made baseless allegations against the officials only to blackmail them after getting exposed in several scandals.
