Efforts of the officials concerned to improve administration in the newly-carved districts of Jagtial, Rajanna-Sircilla and Peddapalli districts from the erstwhile Karimnagar district notwithstanding, lack of adequate staff and infrastructure continues to hit the progress in the new districts even 100 days after their formation.
The government had decided to divide Karimnagar into smaller districts for administrative convenience and to take services to the doorstep of the people. It has, by and large, succeeded in reaching out to the grassroot levels given the reduced area. This is evident from the response to ‘Praja Vani’ (public grievances redressal) programme in the three districts. The four districts, including the residual Karimnagar, are competing with each other in campaigning for making their respective districts open defecation-free (ODF) by construction of individual sanitary latrines setting the deadline of January 26.
In spite of inadequate staff and poor infrastructure, each district is progressing on various fronts. For instance, in Peddapalli district, Collector A.S. Alagu Varshini utilised the NREGS for removing bushes and silt from the SRSP canals to ensure that water reached the tail-end regions.
She launched a campaign to check misuse of ₹1 a kg rice scheme by educating the beneficiaries to inform the revenue authorities if they do not want to consume the rice.
Jagtial Collector A. Sharath won accolades for his 36-hour non-stop construction of 820 ISLs in the district in the process of declaring it ODF well before the deadline. He is taking special interest in encouraging institutional deliveries in the government hospitals and focussing on improving results in the State-run schools.
Rajanna-Sircilla District Collector Krishna Bhaskar is according top priority to restore the lost glory to the powerloom industry in Sircilla town. He is leaving no stone unturned in developing Sri Raja Rajeshwara Swamy Devasthanam in addition to laying emphasis on land acquisition for several irrigation projects and completion of Mid Manair Dam.
Karimnagar Collector Sarfaraz Ahmed is striving to ensure that Karimnagar town secured Smart City status. He is focusing on the supervision of social welfare hostels and schools to improve results and quality of education.
Though people are happy with the new districts, senior officials, however, are lamenting that they had to lose out on 20 per cent HRA and were incurring further loss by travelling from the erstwhile Karimnagar district headquarters to new districts every day.
“We are overcoming initial teething problems,” an official said.
