Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

MLAs vent ire on officials

By Our Staff Reporter

ANANTAPUR SEPT. 13. Legislators of the ruling and opposition parties have expressed serious discontent over implementation of District Poverty Initiatives Programme or Velugu in the district.

Officials of the project have failed to give convincing answers to many of the queries raised by the legislators. In a review meeting held here today, MLAs and MPs alleged that they were kept in the dark about the details of implementation by the project officials for all the three years so far. They stated that they had no idea about who were selected beneficiaries and how much funds were utilised so far.

The Penukonda legislator, P. Ravindra, sought to know why an NGO was given the money for giving loans to the SC farmers for purchase of seed in Ramagiri and Chennekothapalli mandals. He explained that in spite of his raising objections in advance, Rs. 17 lakhs was given to Timbaktu Collective, an NGO, for giving it to 250 SC farmers at Re. 1 interest.

Mr. Ravindra alleged that the NGO was publicising in the villages that it had given loans to the farmers. The District Collector, B. Rajsekhar, explained that the amount was given to the NGO as the mutually aided cooperative societies were not formed by the Velugu groups there.

Not satisfied with the answer Mr. Ravindra threw the microphone and walked out of the meeting.

Before he walked out, Mr. Ravindra told the Project Director, I. Samuel Anandkumar, to furnish the details. The Congress legislator, J.C. Diwakar Reddy, alleged that eligible beneficiaries were overlooked by the officials.

Instead of involving local bodies in identifying the beneficiaries, the project administration had selected the beneficiaries in a discriminating manner directly at village level. When he asked the Project Director to give the details to all legislators and MPs by September 18, the Project Director replied that it would take one month.

N. Raghuveera Reddy and R. Sainath Goud, MLAs, and the K. Srinivasulu and B.K. Parthasarathi, MPs also expressed dissatisfaction over the Velugu implementation. The meeting was chaired by the Minister for Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development, N. Kistappa.

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