The State government has focussed its attention on achieving “smoking free” Telangana in the coming days by strict enforcement of the existing provisions restricting the use of tobacco.
Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi wanted the officials concerned to put up signage boards indicating no smoking zones in public places across the State. The focus should be on educational institutions, railway stations, hotels, bus stations, government offices, shopping complexes and other public places, he said at a review on Thursday.
The Chief Secretary reviewed the status of implementation of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act 2003 with senior officials on Thursday.
He wanted the officials to take steps to constitute coordination committees and enforcement teams at district and mandal levels to monitor the sale of tobacco products banned in the State. In addition, efforts should be made to include ill effects of tobacco consumption as a subject in the school curriculum. The meeting discussed about the best practices being implemented in different States and it was decided to ensure effective coordination between different departments and enforcement agencies to significantly bring down consumption of tobacco.
Power dues
Mr. Joshi directed the officials concerned to take steps for repayment of power dues pending payment by different departments in line with the instructions issued by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The Chief Minister, at a review meeting on Wednesday, assured the Distribution Companies that the government would provide financial assistance to the power utilities and directed the departments concerned to clear their pending dues.
The departments should focus on setting up pre-paid meters in their respective offices besides working out modalities on the optimum utilisation of solar power for their power requirements. The officials of the Energy Department were directed to send details relating to setting up of solar power generation units to all the departments through the State New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation.
Halfway homes
The meeting also discussed about the progress of setting up of halfway homes for the people who recovered from mental ailments so that they could re-integrate themselves with the mainstream. The officials of Health Department had submitted designs for halfway homes, but the Chief Secretary is understood to have asked them to fine-tune the designs so that a final call on the issue could be taken.
He wanted the officials concerned to prepare action plans to ensure that screening of people suffering with mental ailments was taken up in association with Asha Workers, ANMs and primary health centres as well as district level medical officers. Training modules for these district and village level staff should be designed while the services of psychiatrists in private sector could be enlisted for conducting the screening camps.
