Andhra Pradesh

‘Focus on land distribution, water to tribals’

Kakinada: The government has resolved to distribute lands to all tribal people in the State and provide safe drinking water in the Agency areas. Priority has been attached to those schemes by Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy who was not hesitant to make adequate allocations in the upcoming budget, said Rural Water Supply Minister P Viswaroop.

Supplementing his statement in the District Review Committee meeting held here on Wednesday, East Godavari district in-charge and Panchayat Raj Minister Botcha Satyanarayana said the government was exploring all means to provide basic amenities in the Agency areas. In addition to augmenting the infrastructure available for supplying drinking water, sanitation was given utmost importance to prevent various diseases from afflicting tribal folks, particularly in the rainy season.

Mr. Satyanarayana said the government was preparing to allocate enough funds for construction and maintenance of protected water supply schemes and setting up of reverse osmosis plants. The feasibility of installing machinery which extracts water from moisture content in the atmosphere was being examined on the basis of the outcome of a pilot project underway at a few places in the State, including Jalimudi village near Rajanagaram in E.G district.

During the discussion on agriculture, Mr. Satyanarayana ordered Joint Director of Agriculture T Nandaiah to make an assessment of the impact of deficient rainfall on crops in order to pay compensation to the farmers and provide crop insurance wherever applicable. Mr. Nandaiah said the district should have received 217 mm of rain from April to June but only 82 mm was recorded.

The Chief Minister will lay foundation stone for a protected water supply scheme costing Rs 8.7 crore at Rampachodavaram on July 5 apart from giving land pattas to tribal folks.

Social Welfare Minister Pilli Subhaschandra Bose, MLCs G Rudraraju, N Chinna Rajappa and K Durgesh, MLAs Rowthu Suryaprakasa Rao, N Sesha Reddy, T.V. Narasimham, R Varaprasad, Pendurthy Venkatesh, Parvata Chittibabu, Vanga Geeta, P Gandhi Mohan, K Kannababu, Collector Gopalakrishna Dwivedi, Joint Collector K Sasidhar and others were present in the deliberations.

Later, the Minister told a delegation of mandal development officers (MDO) and village secretaries’ associations that the government decided to regularise the services of some 4,000 village secretaries who were working on contract basis.

It was also intent on regularising the jobs of other contract workers in the Panchayat Raj Department, bill collectors and those qualified in SSC examination, together numbering some10,000.

The Minister’s announcement came in response to the District Panchayat Raj Employees Association president K.N.V. Prasad’s appeal to solve the problems being faced by employees and contract workers.

Mr. Satyanarayana said the PR and Rural Development Departments were preparing a seniority list for the purpose.

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