‘Speed up work on railway projects’

Karadi Sanganna, MP, while expressing his displeasure over the ‘snail’s pace’ progress in acquiring land for the railway projects, instructed the authorities concerned to expedite the process.

Presiding over the first quarterly meeting of the District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee to review the progress of implementing the Central Schemes and also Centrally-sponsored schemes in the district here on Wednesday, Mr. Sanganna said that two major railway project – laying of new rail lines between Gadag-Wadi and Ginigera-Mehboobnagar – passing through the district, was under implementation under fifty-fifty cost sharing ratio between Railways and State government.

But the acquisition of land for the Ginigera-Mehaboobnagar in a couple of villages including Yeradona, Karatagi was getting delayed and no progress was seen as for as acquisition of land of 1,249 acres for Gadag-Wadi project.

Stating that the process of inviting tenders for laying a 57-km stretch between Talakal and Kushtagi, for Rs.114.66 crore had been completed, he underlined the need for the officials concerned to accord priority for acquisition of land expeditiously to ensure that the railway projects were implemented without any hindrances.

Taking exception to the inaction of officials of the Education Department in getting 195 school dropouts admitted in the schools, Mr. Sanganna wanted them to initiate all necessary steps to ensure that there would not be school drop outs would be brought to the main stream without further delay.

R. Ramachandran, Chief Executive officer of Zilla Panchayat, took the officials to task for not taking necessary steps to bring the dropouts to the main stream.

“The figures that of the total 305 drop outs only 110 were admitted and still 195 are away from school itself indicate that officials concerned are not discharging their duties properly,” he noted and instructed them to submit a detailed report of the steps being taken by them.

Mr. Sanganna directed the officials to identify the schools facing shortage of teachers and initiate appropriate steps to overcome it. He also asked the Agricultural Department to monitor sale of chemical fertilisers at maximum retail price only.

Satyanagarayan Deshpande, Vijayakumar, both members of the committee, were among other officials present.