DHARWAD: President of Dharwad Zilla Panchayat Geeta Patil has warned officials that she will recommend disciplinary action against those who fail to provide information on the progress achieved under various projects and fail to take steps according to the decisions taken at the zilla panchayat meeting.

Chairing the second general body meeting of the zilla panchayat here on Saturday, Ms. Patil issued this warning when many officials stuttered while replying to queries from members, and were not equipped with adequate information on the ongoing projects. She said those giving wrong information would also be dealt with seriously.

Earlier, the meeting discussed various issues and projects related to social welfare, women and child development, agriculture, forestry, health and watershed development. The issue of shortage of seeds in the district led to some heated arguments. Cutting across party lines the members urged the officials to take steps to solve the problem. The members asked Joint Director of Agriculture N.V. Chandrashekhar to speed up his work, when he failed to give proper information on the requirement of seeds for distribution to small and very small farmers.

Zilla panchayat vice-president B.B. Gangadharmath urged the Chief Executive Officer of the zilla panchayat to recommend disciplinary action against those officials who failed to provide enough seeds to farmers in time.

The Joint Director of Agriculture said there was no scarcity of seeds in the district. He said that there were 60,550 small and very small farmers in the district, who required 8,502 quintals of seeds. They had been given 7,924 quintals of seeds at subsidised rates with the help of rebate grant of Rs. 2.2 crore, he said.

The members alleged that the anganwadi centres in the district were not being properly maintained and urged for action against the Deputy Director of the Department of Women and Child Development and Child Development Officers.

Some of the members pointed out to the slow progress of watershed development projects and alleged that funds were being returned to the Governemnt because of the slow pace.

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