Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has said that the government will unveil a special 60-day action plan to establish a new work culture in villages and towns in the light of three new pieces of legislation in the State.
The government has decided to release 15th Finance Commission grants to local bodies even before the implementation of the action plan, Mr. Rao said after unfurling the national flag to mark the Independence Day celebrations at the historic Golconda fort.
The colourful function with the huge fort wall in background was attended by school children dressed in tricolour and flaunting shreds of cellophane paper of similar colours. Cultural artistes of different dance forms stood on elevated parts of the fort. The police presented the guard of honour and parade to Mr. Rao.
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Mr. Rao expressed the confidence that the Acts for municipal, panchayat raj and revenue would ensure cleanliness and greenery in villages and towns. After all, insanitary conditions either in villages or towns was the main cause of diseases and an uncivilised society.
As a first step in the 60-day plan, he sought implementation of a sanitation drive in villages and towns with the slogan “cleanliness is godliness”. The civil society should collaborate in removal of garbage. Emphasising the importance of cleanliness in villages, he recalled present-day scenes of wild growth, debris of collapsed houses, unhygienic cattle sheds and stagnant water and abandoned wells which were the breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
The scenes were visible all over the State. All of them should be eliminated in the 60 days, he said.
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The 60-day period should also include a week-long ‘power week’ to replace rusted and outdated electric poles and hanging wires. The government would mobilise poles and wires for all villages. The field staff of electricity department would camp in villages for the whole week.
Mr. Rao also suggested that 10% of funds of gram panchayats and municipalities be allocated for improvement of greenery. Every household should get six saplings from nurseries raised by local bodies.
The government proposed a model administration through the action plan. Based on the plan, the local bodies must come up with one-year and five-year plans to suit local conditions and get their approval from gram sabhas.
He asked the government machinery to ensure that the face of villages and towns changed after the 60-day period. He promised introduction of a new revenue legislation to replace an archaic law in the Budget session of the Assembly shortly.