Fine print of an insurance fraud in Telangana Premium

Hyderabad sanitation workers fall victim to fake insurance scams, highlighting the need for public awareness and vigilance.

As dawn breaks over Hyderabad, before the first tea stalls steam to life, hundreds of sanitation workers are already at work, their brooms combing the city to prepare it for the day’s bustle. For 58-year-old Nethetla Pochamma, a single mother and an outsourced worker with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, it wasn’t just a job—it was her lifeline.

With a thick mark of vermilion on her forehead, she swept the streets with a quiet resolve. The work meant food on the table and a semblance of stability. But on the morning of August 23, 2022, her life came undone in seconds.

While working in KPHB Colony, she was struck by a college bus on Pragathi Nagar-JNTU Road. The impact splintered her bones and hurled her onto the asphalt she had spent years tending. Though she was rushed to one hospital after another, no amount of medical intervention could undo the damage. Pochamma succumbed to her injuries hours after the incident.

Life on the streets she had cleaned for years carried on as usual but it froze for her daughter, 36-year-old Netetla Malleswari. Alongside the pain of losing her mother came another battle—a relentless fight for an insurance claim, one that has stretched for over 32 months now.

“The case is under trial,” says her lawyer. “Even with clear evidence, it could take another four or five months for a breakthrough, if any. The insurance policy of the vehicle involved was bogus.”

As unending trips to government offices, unanswered calls and mountains of paperwork consume her life, Malleswari sinks deeper into the maw of an insidious scam, one quietly devouring thousands of victims across Telangana.

Sold with slick documents and tall promises, fake vehicle insurance policies are turning roadside tragedies into financial abysses, leaving families stranded without compensation and no recourse.