Date:17/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/17/stories/2008021757440300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

High on brew, beneficiaries shun housing scheme

Staff Reporter

ADILABAD: One of the main reasons for the slow progress of Indiramma housing in Adilabad district is the illicitly distilled liquor (IDL) or simply ‘mahue-ki-sharab’.

Able-bodied men who are beneficiaries of the scheme are shunning construction work only to get drunk in the day time.

The progress of Indiramma houses in Mukhra-B gram panchayat in Ichoda mandal is a case in point.

Of the 331 houses sanctioned in different villages and hamlets of the gram panchayat, work on only about 100 of them is complete. Another 53 are in various stages of construction.

Of the 75 houses sanctioned in Devulanaik tanda, 30 in Sat Numbergaon, 26 in Raghuguda and 25 in Mankuguda there is no progress worth a mention.

Ichoda Tahsildar G. Shiva Kumar who visited these villages on Saturday in order to motivate the beneficiaries to speed up work found to his consternation that IDL being distilled in some of the villages including Sat Numbergaon and Mukhra-B is largely responsible for beneficiaries not reporting to work despite piling up of construction material at the respective house sites.

Villagers pointed out that the Excise department conduct raids in villages occasionally. This does not have even a salutary effect, they added.