BANGALORE: The Karnataka State Public Service Commission has commenced the process for filling 213 vacancies in posts of college lecturers.

Making the announcement in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, Minister for Higher Education D.H. Shankaramurthy said new government degree colleges were opened this year. Replying to S.S. Patil (Congress), he said vacancies in a degree college at Mundargi (Mr. Patil's constituency), would be filled.

The Minister said there was no proposal before the Government to open an engineering college in Chamarajanagar, a backward district. Replying to Vatal Nagaraj (Kannada Chaluvali), he said no government engineering college was established in recent years. Dissatisfied with the reply, Mr. Nagaraj staged a dharna in the House.

Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Basavaraj S. Horatti said there were 89 vacancies of teachers in primary schools in Belgaum district. These included 35 vacancies of Kannada teachers and 41 of Marathi teachers, and 13 vacancies in Urdu medium schools, he added.

Replying to Manohar Kallappa Kinekar (Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti), he said teachers preferred to work in urban areas. The department had decided to take action against teachers who refused to serve in villages. An amendment to the law was required to remove deficiencies in the transfer policy, he added.

He said textbooks were supplied to all government schools before May 31, and there was no shortage of textbooks in the market.

Minister for Water Resources K.S. Eshwarappa said an action plan had been prepared to implement 39 long-pending projects in river basins this year.

Replying to Gurupadappa Nagamarpalli (Congress), he said Rs. 1,042 crore had been earmarked for irrigation projects. An official was monitoring work on the projects to ensure that they were completed before the end of the current financial year. The department would submit a report on the projects once in three months, he said.

Leader of the Opposition N. Dharam Singh suggested to the Government to enhance the allocation for irrigation projects, especially the Upper Krishna Project, to avoid delay in their completion. His government had increased the allocation by Rs. 900 crore, Mr. Singh said.

Shivananda Patil (Congress) said the Karanja project, which was taken up in 1970 at an estimated cost of Rs. 9 crore, was incomplete and the cost had increased to over Rs. 700 crore. He urged the Government to fill vacancies of executive engineers. Shortage of staff was delaying work, he added.

Replying to B. Shivaram (Congress), Mr. Eshwarappa said a survey on the second and third stages of the Kachenahalli lift irrigation project was complete. The cost was being estimated, and land acquisition had begun.

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