The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : A disappointed lot

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 31, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

A disappointed lot

Guess who would have been among the most disappointed lot because of the Mudigonda firing and deaths? Officials of the Vijayawada Guntur Tenali Mangalagiri Urban Development Authority (VGTM-UDA), at least for a particular reason.

The officials made much homework and prepared a power-point presentation to make before Union Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy during his scheduled visit to the city on Sunday.

The UDA authorities wanted to impress upon the Minister of the need to dole out some funds for some of the pending projects like the inner ring road. But the Mudigonda developments have forced the Minister to cancel his visit, leaving UDA officials thoroughly crestfallen. Though VMC officials too lined up many programmes, including inauguration of some of the completed underground drainage works, they apparently weren’t as disappointed a lot as the UDA authorities, as Mr. Jaipal Reddy’s Ministry has already been generous towards the VMC by way of making substantial allocations under JNNURM.

At their wits’ end

Is it a festival of humours playlets or an orchestra? The question haunted a majority of the audience who arrived at Tummalapallivari Kshetrayya Kalakshetram on Sunday morning to witness the laugh riot organised by Sumadhura Kala Niketan. It was announced in the brochure that a team of comedians from Hyderabad led by Gundu Hanumantha Rao would entertain the audience with a medley of comic skits. But the team, instead presenting the skits, managed most of the time by fielding some amateur singers to churn out old Telugu melodies.

The organisers were in their wits’ end as the audience began showing resentment at listening to vintage music when they came prepared to soak in clean comedy. Some of the comedians whose names were announced were nowhere to be seen on the dais and a few skits presented by those who turned up were run-of-the-mill stuff, lacking innovation. The performance of ‘parody’ Guruswamy proved to be the saving grace for the organisers.

Shattered hope

The name of noted cardiologist and chairman of Care Hospitals B. Soma Raju on an invitation card of a cath lab inauguration in a local hospital brought journalists from almost all local dailies to the venue. With a hope to grab some useful sound bites from the famed cardiologist, the scribes arrived at the venue in time braving the downpour, only to be told that Dr. Soma Raju had come, inaugurated the lab and left the venue 10 minutes before the scheduled time of the event.

The disappointed journalists had to remain satisfied with a few words they could elicit from the consultant cardiologist of the hospital.

Of drug and crop

There is a direct link between scientific advancement in finding a drug for malaria and increase in cropped area under paddy in Nagarjuna Sagar Project Right Canal ayacut. Everyone was perplexed when NSP Lingamguntla Superintending Engineer Kola Rayalu said at a meeting that with drop in mortality rate in malaria, the cropped area went up phenomenally.

In the early days of canal system coming into being, farmers used to irrigate entire land around their villages for cultivating paddy and twice a year and stagnated water for months together in the fields around their houses became a common phenomenon.

This led to upsurge in the number of malaria deaths. Government then deleted lands close to villages from the ayacut, but with the scientists finding good medicines, the unauthorized ayacut went up significantly. The irrigation department was now finding it difficult to provide water to the area beyond designed ayacut and tail-end areas also.

(K. Srimali, J.R. Shridharan, P. Sujatha Varma in Vijayawada and Ramesh Susarla in Guntur)

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