"Long live KTR. May God give him the strength to help many more people. I am very happy that he has immediately responded to my grievance and addressed it. The young minister is very quick in action," said Seshanavaratnam, an octogenarian woman who stole the show at Friday's Mana Nagaram program.
The woman had complained on Friday to the minister that a kitchen of Kritunga restaurant in her low income group (LIG) apartment complex in KPHB Colony was polluting the atmosphere. The heat and the pungent odour it was generating had become unbearable for the occupants of the other apartments in the complex, and the huge gas cylinders used for cooking purposes were posing a danger to the premises, she claimed.
The frail old woman, unable to stand upright and stooped half her height, had come all the way to submit a representation to the minister at the Mana Nagaram program of the Kukatpally zone on Friday, and gathered the strength to walk up to the minister with the help of his personal staff. KTR gave her a patient hearing and asked GHMC Zonal Commissioner D Harichandana and Chief City Planner Devender Reddy to act immediately on the issue.
A team of officials of the GHMC immediately got into action and inspected the complex, and found the kitchen was indeed violating the rules. The officials immediately served a notice on the owners, closed down the kitchen and sealed the premises.
Harichandana said that the restaurant did not have a trade licence, and that the running of the kitchen was in contravention of the fire-safety norms prescribed by the government.
The elated woman said that the restaurant staff had troubled the complex residents a lot, and that all the earlier efforts of the residents to get the resolved were unsuccessful. "Yesterday, I went to the Mana Nagaram program of KTR and he was kind enough to pay special attention to me and direct the officials to look into the problem," she said.
Her son Gopi said that the problem had persisted for six years, and that the court orders being cited by the restaurant management had nothing to do with the premises in question. He said that his mother was very happy and so were the other residents of the apartments in the complex after the kitchen was closed.
"The minister is helping ordinary people like us. My mother has given her blessings to him," he said.