Officials must ensure that the verification of bogus ration cards or pensions is done in a proper manner, facts at the field level should not be forgotten and genuine beneficiaries must not be affected, District Minister in-charge Kanna Lakshminarayana said during the District Review Committee meeting here on Saturday.
He said so after the MLAs complained that the employees were rude and giving threats of cancellation of cards during the survey.
Mr. Lakshminarayana also wanted the MLAs and MLCs to bring irregularities to the notice of the Collector or other officials. Action would be taken if the irregularities were confirmed.
The District Review Committee (DRC) meeting, held at the air-conditioned hall of Vaisakhi Jala Udyanavanam went on smoothly with the Telugu Desam and Congress MLAs avoiding arguments between them, a normal occurrence seen during a DRC meeting or a Zilla Praja Parishad meeting, and concentrated on the officials regarding execution of programmes and schemes.
However, no item on the agenda was discussed in full measure and some were not taken up.
The only time a heated argument was witnessed was when Madugula MLA G. Rama Naidu of TDP and Anakapalle MP Sabbam Hari of the Congress were engaged in a verbal duel while rural water supply was being discussed. The former also complained that protocol was not being followed.
The members insisted that the drinking water supply be improved as the condition was already bad. Leader of Opposition in Legislative Council Dadi Veerabhadra Rao and others wanted the freeze order on release of funds relaxed immediately. When Mr. Veerabhadra Rao complained that the District Treasury Officer was responsible for Rs. 30 crores worth scholarships to the SC and BC students not being disbursed, Mr. Lakshminarayana asked Collector J. Syamala Rao to conduct an inquiry by the Joint Collector. The DTO said many bills were received late and the bank's server was closed at midnight of March 31.
The Minister in-charge expressed his unhappiness over the rise in incidence of fevers in the Agency area from January to March and felt that adequate preventive measures were not taken. Araku Valley MLA Siveri Soma of TDP complained that the fund sanctioned for improving facilities at the CHC, Araku Valley was not spent.
Bheemunipatnam MLA M. Srinivasa Rao said that the doctors were encouraging private hospitals. He wanted the Bheemunipatnam hospital upgraded.
MLC MVS Sarma wanted a meeting to be held on water-borne and vector-born diseases and to decide the fate of the 30-bed hospital at Gopalapatnam. Discussion was also held on housing programmes and agriculture. Members were concerned that the subsidy for agriculture was not fully released. They also complained that the Executive Officer of Simhachalam Devasthanam was taking law into his own hands regarding the encroachments of lands and not even allowing repairs to the be done to the buildings.
Zilla Praja Parishad Chairman G. Ramamurthy Naidu, MLAs Malla Vijaya Prasad, U.V. Ramana Murthy Raju (Kannababu), B. Mutyala Papa, Ch. Venkatramiah, Dronamraju Srinivasa Rao, G. Babu Rao and Velagpudi Ramakrishna Babu and MLC D.S.N. Raju participated in the discussions. Joint Collector P. Bhaskar, Additional Joint Collector S. Satyanarayana, DRO D.V. Reddy, CEO of ZPP P.A. Sobha, PO of ITDA Paderu K. Nirmala and other officials were present.
