Commissioner for Panchayat Raj and Rural Development B. Ramanjaneyulu has appealed to village secretaries, sarpanches and MDOs to consider the villages as their own to ensure speedy development and to implement government schemes in a better way. He said that State government would soon issue a G.O. to utilise Sthree Nidhi (Dwacra Women fund) in case the Centre delays releasing funds for MNREGS works.
Addressing a review meeting of Rajamahendravaram, Rampachodavaram and Chinturu revenue divisions in East Godavari on Thursday along with District Collector Karthikeya Mishra and Project Officers from the Agency, Mr. Ramanjaneyulu said sarpanches and MDOs should concentrate on three important programmes of the government for the development of villages.
People living below the poverty line should be provided ₹10,000 livelihood income by implementing different schemes; gram panchayats should see that all basic amenities and infrastructure are provided with the help of NREGS and 14th Finance Commission funds. He emphasised that education, health and ICDS activities should not be neglected. He said a new G.O. directing that the sarpanch and MDO review education, health and ICDS activities every Saturday would be issued soon.
Waste management
Mr. Ramanjaneyulu said that solid waste management should be priority in all villages, under which underground drainage system would be taken up first time in the villages with less than 5,000 population. He said the government would sanction ₹3,600 for magic soak pits in places where the population is around 2,000 instead of underground drainage.
He announced that new roads will be laid with ₹4,000 crore in the State, of which ₹1,200 crore would be spent on roads in Agency areas. All pending electricity bills of gram panchayats would be paid in phased manner. He said the State government brought many reforms in NREGS by allowing construction of burial grounds, playfields and laying CC roads.
Mr. Mishra said connectivity problem was hampering NREGS payments in Agency areas and also less penetration of banking areas, postal delays were affecting payments. He said that 58,000 families in the district were identified for increasing their livelihood income up to ₹10,000.
He said that the data regarding poor pregnant women between Anganwadies and ICDS was not matching, and asked the Commissioner to sort out the problem. The Collector said the administration had laid 620 km of CC roads against the target of 700 km and that it was preparing to lay 700 km more in the next financial year. He said they had taken up horticulture in 7,000 hectares and detailed project report was sent to sanction ₹800 crore for house-to-house tap connections in the district.
ITDA Project Officers A.S. Dinesh Kumar and Abhishikth Kishore, Sub-Collectors Vinod Kumar and C.M. Saikantha Varma and ZP CEO P.D. Dwama participated in the meeting.
