ONGOLE : District Collector B. Udaya Lakhsmi has directed officials to confine National Horticulture Mission (NHM) activities only to area expansion and avoid the rejuvenation programme over which there are complaints of misappropriation of funds.

Reviewing the programme in Prakasam district on Wednesday, she asked officials to conduct mandal-level meetings with beneficiaries and involve elected representatives like mandal presidents, MPTC, ZPTC members and MLAs and apprise them how the programme with a heavy subsidy component was implemented.

Core crops

Assistant Director of Horticulture Vidyasankar said Prakasam was one of the 11 districts selected in Andhra Pradesh for implementation of NHM to encourage four core crops, namely, mango, sapota, sweet orange and cashew besides floriculture and spices like chilli. Kandukur MLA M. Mahidhara Reddy, however, said several irregularities had come to his notice. He alleged the officials selected even landless persons as beneficiaries under the programme. They sanctioned subsidy for farmers who had 25-year-old mango orchards. Some persons had obtained subsidy from the SC Corporation for drilling borewells. As they did not yield any water, they abandoned them several years ago. Such farmers were now selected as beneficiaries under NHM, he complained.

Ms. Lakhsmi directed NHM officials to furnish the list of beneficiaries and the subsidy released to them till now. If any irregularities were noticed, action would be taken against officer concerned, she warned.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail