Andhra Pradesh - Ongole   

Outgoing Collector lists achievements

Special Correspondent

Likely to be relieved tomorrow

ONGOLE: District Collector B. Udaya Lakshmi is likely to be relieved after the Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, visits the district on June 1. She has been transferred to Hyderabad as Additional Commissioner, Horticulture.

Speaking to newspersons here today, she recounted her achievements and thanked the people, MLAs and officials for their cooperation during her eventful tenure. She is the first lady Collector of Prakasam district formed 36 years ago. After Sunil Sharma and Jayaprakash Narayan, she has the longest innings of three years as Collector of Prakasam district.

Credit camps

She considered distribution of 20,000 acres of land among poor women as her single largest achievement that gave her tremendous satisfaction. She conducted credit camps and geared up banks to increase farm lending to Rs. 700 crore. She won aplomb by rendering relief to people quickly after natural calamities like tsunami, `Ogni' cyclone, floods.

She was also happy that she could acquire land required for Gundlakamma project in a record time. Rs 600 crore Gundlakamma will be the first among fast track irrigation projects getting ready in the State by August to provide irrigation to 80,000 acres. Velugonda and Ramatheertham projects are also going on as per schedule.

Compensation

But she drew flak both from Congress and TDP MLAs over fixing compensation for land and houses getting submerged under Gundlakamma project. The ruling party legislators were sore that she ignored their advice but heeded Karanam Balaramakrishna Murthi, Addanki MLA (TDP) in fixing the compensation. But Mr. Murthi too fell with her and picked up a row with her in public causing sensation.

The Congress MLAs went to the extent of calling district administration as corrupt and partisan. Saying that she favoured the TDP and harmed the Congress interests, they made several representations to the Chief Minister demanding her transfer in the last one year.

As their demands gained stridency, she became more stubborn. She withered the storm, thanks to unstinted support given to her by Finance Minister, K Rosaiah. Even as the transfer issue acquired political overtones, the government transferred her.

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