Telangana CM asks police to avoid trouble to public owing to his convoy

Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy on Friday directed police to take steps to avoid inconvenience to people during the movement of his convoy of vehicles, asking them to relax existing rules for the movement of the chief minister’s convoy to avoid trouble for the common people.

Revanth Reddy directed police officials to make sure traffic is not stopped for too long on routes used by his convoy, and said the number of vehicles in his convoy has been reduced from 15 to nine. He also asked officials to take alternate measures so that there is no need to stop traffic and there are no traffic jams.

The new chief minister told officials that he has to undertake extensive visits to personally know the problems of people and hence, they should take alternate steps to avoid trouble to people on the routes used by him. He also said he can’t "sit at home" without addressing people’s problems.

The chief minister’s directive to police officials came amid reports of VIP movements during the last few days causing inconvenience to common people in Hyderabad.

Police were stopping traffic at various points to facilitate the movement of the convoy of the chief minister from his residence in Jubilee Hills to the state secretariat, assembly, and other places in the state capital.

Revanth Reddy, who assumed office on 7 December, is visiting the secretariat every day to hold review meetings with officials. When the previous Bharat Rashtra Samiti government was in power, Reddy and other Congress leaders had been criticising then chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for not venturing out of his official residence to know people’s problems.