Kagaznagar (Adilabad):  There seems to be no end for the water woes for the people of Kagaznagar. While the people of the town are facing immense hardships to fetch a bucket of water, the official and political leaders are behaving indifferently to their plight by not taking any steps to lay new internal pipelines for supplying water. The locals alleged that the political leaders are busy demanding bribes or commissions from the contractors to award pipe laying work and reluctant to take any decision, until their palms are greased.

The state government has released Rs 2.32 crore for laying of internal pipelines in several municipal wards in Kagaznagar for the financial years 2013-14 and 2014-15 from the funds of the 13th Finance Commission. For this purpose, online tenders were invited on February 24 by the municipal officers and the contractors could secure their contracts. Although works have to be taken up in every municipal ward but nothing has moved yet.   

After calling for tenders, the municipal council meetings were held thrice but the council did not give its approval to even one of the tenders. One of the contractors alleged that an important political leader was demanding a huge amount of bribe for giving approval to his tender as the works relating to laying of pipelines are worth more than Rs 2 crore. He said that the politician demanded 10 per cent of the budget as commission, while contractor said that he would be able to pay just 5% and negotiations are still on.