Ramanathapuram
Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the nodal ministry designated to monitor progress in various indicators in the district, selected as one of the 115 aspirational districts in the country, visited villages and inspected the developmental works on Saturday.
Accompanied by Collector S. Natarajan and P. Amutha, Commissioner for Food Safety, who is the State nodal officer, Mr Mishra visited Ariyanendal, Devipattinam and Kazhuguoorani villages to get first-hand account of the progress made in key indicators such as public health, education, agriculture, basic infrastructure, skill development and financial inclusion being focussed in aspirational districts.
He visited a ‘Smart Anganwadi Centres’ at Ariyanendal and Devipattinam and interacted with Anganwadi workers about child care and immunisation. He also interacted with pregnant mothers and enquired whether the ‘Sathu Maavu’ (nutritious mix of powder) distributed to them was beneficial. Mr Mishra also inspected the solid waste management system at Ariyanendal.
Mr. Mishra visited the Government District Headquarters Hospital and interacted with medical officers about public health in general and new initiatives in particular. The officers told him that as part of new initiatives they had opened a breastmilk bank in the hospital and opened bank accounts for newborn children on the occasion of National Girl Child Day on January 24.
Later, he visited Kazhuguoorani and inspected skill development training offered to local people at the community hall. Finding that the people were being trained to make mats, using palm leaves, he suggested that they could be trained to make attractive palm leaf products such as colourful baskets, containers and decorative items.
After visiting the memorial of former president APJ Abdul Kalam and Sri Ramanathasamy temple in Rameswaram, Mr. Mishra reviewed progress made in various indicators, identified for aspirational districts, with Collector and heads of all departments in the evening and expressed satisfaction with the overall progress.
Mr Mishra’s review followed Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s visit to the district on May 2. She inspected the implementation of seven flagship centrally-sponsored pro-poor schemes under ‘Gram Swaraj Abhiyan’ in 34 villages with more than 75% households of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. She had expressed satisfaction over the achievement of saturation in seven schemes in all the villages.
