The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Nod for backward region fund

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Monday, Jul 07, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Nod for backward region fund

Correspondent

Grants released to panchayats not sufficient, say members

VIZIANAGARAM: The District Planning Committee approved the BRGF (backward region grant fund) four-year plan for 2008-09 to 2011 –12 at its meeting at Zilla Parishad conference hall on Sunday.

A total of 25,814 works with an estimated cost of Rs.105.57 crores (excluding departmental grants) under BRGF was planned during the period and the proposals were being sent to the high power committee of the government, said ZP Chairman B. Appala Naidu, who is also the chairman of the DPC.

He said that the estimates were prepared by increasing 10 per cent each year over and above the estimates for 2007-08.

Objections

Top priority was given to roads, sanitation, education, anganwadi, rural electrification, animal husbandry, health and other infrastructure facilities after obtaining the proposals enlisted at gram panchayats, mandal parishad and four municipalities in the district, the Chairman said. Roads got the lion’s share of Rs.49.25crores followed by sanitation Rs.14.59 crores, education Rs.4.90 crores, anganwadis Rs.3.49 crores, rural water supply Rs.3.40 crores and health was allotted a mere Rs.0.8 crores.

Raising objections, Pilla Vijayakumar, town Congress president, who was one among the committee members, complained that K. Veerabhadra Swamy, Vizianagaram MLA and M. Geetha, Municipal Chairperson had not informed the members about the works being included in the list and said that it was against the guidelines.

The MLA said that due to urgency the works were finalised and changes in priorities could be made after the grants were released.

During a discussion, the committee members (all from the Congress) said that the grants being released to panchayats were not sufficient even to meet maintenance cost and hence they were unable to repair bore wells.

Borewells

As a number of borewells remained defunct, ZP, Mandal Parishads and panchayats could draw up an action plan to carry out repairs to the bore wells jointly to mitigate drinking water crisis in villages. MLAs P. Narayanaswamy and Padala Aruna (TDP), P.Sambasiva Raju and K. Veerabhadra Swamy (Congress) participated.

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