Avula Venkata Ranganath, Commissioner of Hyderabad Disaster Response and Assets Monitoring and Protection (HYDRA) has turned into a monstor for land grabbers in Hyderabad. Since his appointment as the Commissioner of HYDRA in June, Ranganath has cracked down on the land grabbers, demolishing buildings constructed in Government lands and FTL limits of water bodies.
HYDRA was formed by the newly sworn in Congress Government to monitor, manage and offer various relevant public services in Greater Hyderabad region upto Outer Ring Road (ORR) limits.
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy had taken personal care in the formation of HYDRA and picked 53-year-old IPS officer AV Ranganath, who has a good service record, to lead.
During the first meeting held on HYDRA, CM opined that, along with the management of disasters, HYDRA should be given the responsibilities of protecting government properties, controlling of encroachments, acting on illegal constructions and assisting concerned departments in providing essential services like water supply, electricity supply, traffic management and other tasks.
Tasked with none other than CM, HYDRA chief immediately jumped into action. According to GHMC observers, HYDRA has reclaimed a whopping 100 acres of government land and erased illegal constructions in several lake areas like Osman Sagar (Gandipet lake), Himayat Sagar, Errakunta, Bam Rukn Ud-Dowlah and other lakes, within a month of its formation.
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AV Ranganath-led HYDRA has marched at such a fast and furious pace, it has left several biggies of Hyderabad fuming. Senior MLA Danam Nagendar openly expressed his displeasure over HYDRA booking a case against him in Nandagiri Hills land issue. Owasis-led-AIMIM has even demanded for the winding up of HYDRA.
As most of the encroachments are done directly or with indirect support of politicians, whereever HYDRA teams have gone for demolishing illegal constructions, either big guys or small-time politicians have tried to obstruct its operations. But AV Ranganath being a tough task master, saw to it that, HYDRA staff did not buckle under political pressure.
A 1996-batch Group I officer, AV Ranganath got promoted to IPS cadre in 2006.
In his career spanning 28 years, AV Ranganath has held several key roles. He has served as Greyhounds Assault Commander in 2000. As he was serving in Prakasam district during 2004, when YSR-led Congress Government held talks with Maoists, personally welcomed senior Maoist leaders including Ramakrishna (RK).
AV Ranganath also won President’s Police Medal for Gallantry in 2012, for his efforts in curbing left wing extremism.
Later he has served as SP of Khammam and Nalgonda districts.
It was during his stint as Nalgonda SP, Amrita-Pranay episode happened.
Subsequently he has served as Joint Commissioner (Traffic) Hyderabad city and Warangal Police Commissioner.
In fact he has never shied away from taking tough actions, as part of his duty. Either arresting culprits in Medico Preethi’s death incident, arresting BJP firebrand Bandi Sanjay in tenth paper leakage case last year, cracking down on traffic violators during his stint as Hyderabad city traffic chief, AV Ranganath has earned the name of being a tough cop.
Now, as HYDRA Commissioner and with unflinching support of Chief Minister, AV Ranganath is giving nightmares to the land grabbers and encroachers in Hyderabad.
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