HYDERABAD: PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana is expected to lobby for actor-turned-politician K Chiranjeevi in the award of the contract to operate the popular ‘108’ service of the EMRI (Emergency Management & Research Institute). He will meet chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy shortly in this regard.It is learnt that Chiranjeevi’s associates have conveyed their leader’s keenness to take up the ‘108’ service to Satyanarayana who is also the transport minister. Botcha assured them that he would talk to the chief minister shortly and found bright chances for awarding the service contract to an organisation which is already involved in charity work _ running eye and blood banks. Chiranjeevi, who merged his Praja Rajyam with the Congress in February, had met Union health minister and AICC leader in-charge of AP Ghulam Nabi Azad in New Delhi recently and expressed his interest in running the 108 service. The request is now pending before the government.The GVK group, which was given the contract when K Rosaiah was the chief minister, was asked by the government to reduce the operational costs to ` 86 crore from ` 98 crore. Besides, several other conditions like repayment of the ` 42-crore loan raised by the previous operator, Satyam group of Ramalinga Raju, were also laid down for GVK to continue as the operator. On the other hand, the GVK group wanted the government to bear the entire cost to run the services.At present, the government is bearing 95 pc expenditure on the emergency services and the remaining 5 pc is being borne by the private operator.
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