Karnataka   

Gear up to tackle water crisis, officials told

Chitradurga: Taluk panchayat president K. Venkatesh has directed the officials to prepare a draft plan on the drinking water requirements of the taluk and submit a report within a week.

Chairing a taluk panchayat general meeting here on Wednesday, he said that as summer was approaching, officials should gear up to tackle the possible water crisis. He expressed unhappiness that action had not been taken despite repeated instructions.

On road development projects, he asked the Public Works Department to ensure that construction of roads in rural areas was given priority. “I visited several villages and found that there was no proper road network , owing to which people are facing tremendous hardships,” he said. Mr. Venkatesh asked the officials to submit a report on the status of projects taken up and the amount spent on them.

During the discussion on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, members said that neither had projects been sanctioned nor had job cards issued. They said no information was given to them about works under the scheme. To this, executive officer L. Lingaraj said projects could not start as they had not received applications from people for employment. According to the scheme, work could start only after the receipt of applications.

However, he said, village-level meetings were being conducted to educate the people about the scheme and added that people were gradually coming forward to apply for jobs.

Reviewing the projects taken up by various departments, an official of the zilla panchayat engineering department said the Government had released only Rs. 80 lakh against a demand of Rs. 3.87 crore for tackling the water crises in the taluk. He urged the members and the president to pressure the Government to release more funds in this regard. The official said Rs. 11 crore had been given to the Education Department to construct compound walls for schools in the taluk. He said the taluk had received 3,838 bicycles for distribution among students.

An official of the Social Welfare Department said that from this year, under the Untouchability Eradication Project, the Government had enhanced the entitlement under the encouragement fund from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 50,000 to those who go in for inter-caste marriages.

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