CM unhappy over drought relief

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, APRIL 10. The Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, has expressed displeasure over the lukewarm response of officials to the drought conditions in the State.

In a video conference with collectors on Monday he reviewed the drought relief works but was apparently cut up with the officials for not spending even the funds made available to them.

The video conferencing apparatus, however, developed a technical snag forcing the Chief Minister to abandon the exercise minutes after he began interacting with the collectors in the presence of Ministers, secretaries and mediapersons. The equipment of the video conference was shifted to his chambers in the Secretariat from the conference hall, which is under repair.

Mr. Naidu waited for half an hour for the system to be restored. On being told that it would take time for the technical snag to be rectified, he moved to the control room of A.P. Technology Services to talk to the collectors. The Chief Minister pulled up Mr. P. M. K. Gandhi, Director of APTRANSCO, for not arranging supply of conductors to Anantapur district for energising the drinking water schemes. ``We should close the Secretariat and go to the villages. Then only we can realise the intensity of the problem. People are reeling under one of the worst droughts,'' he told senior officers.

The Joint Collector of Anantapur district, Mr. Parthasarathy was hard put to explain why Rs. 6.5 crores, released on March 14, had not been disbursed so far.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Regional
Previous : Subsidy rice price fixed at Rs. 5.50
Next     : UGC order against quota for M.Phil, Ph.D.
           withdrawn