The Corporators of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) will leave for an eight-day study tour to North India, beginning September 15. This year, the corporators will visit various parts of Rajasthan and Delhi to study the administrative models adopted by different municipal corporations.
According to sources, the corporators will fly to Jaipur on September 15 and visit the Jaipur Municipal Corporation on September 16. The next day, they will head to the Jodhpur Municipal Corporation and meet the officials. As part of the itinerary, they will visit Ajmer, Pushkar, and Jaisalmer among other places.
On September 21, the team will reach Delhi, where they will conclude the tour before returning to Visakhapatnam on September 23. The GVMC Council has approved the study tour during a recent meeting, allocating a budget of over ₹1.5 crore for the trip.
This marks the fourth consecutive year that the corporators are going on a study tour.
In 2024, they visited Coimbatore, Mysuru, and Bengaluru. In 2023, the corporators covered Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir, while in 2022, the corporators visited Delhi, Shimla, Manali, Chandigarh, and Agra. The study tours are either objected or refused by several corporators every year, who question the need for such tours. Some also question the outcome of the previous tours.
Jana Sena Party (JSP) corporator from Ward 22, PLVN Murthy, has once again expressed his disinterest in joining the trip. He said that the funds earmarked for such tours should be utilised for the development of wards. Notably, he has skipped all previous study tours as well.
