Andhranews

Kadapa, Oct. 10: Irregularities have come to the fore in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme during the social audit conducted by the AP Vyavasaya Karima Sangham and State resource persons in Kajipet mandal of Kadapa district.

The social audit report alleged that the contractors in connivance with officials and politicians siphoned off funds to the tune of Rs 11 lakh under the scheme in the mandal. The district administration sanctioned Rs 11 lakhs for taking up desiltation works in irrigation canals and provide 100 man days to landless poor in Shantinagar, Muthuluripadu and Boyyayapalle villages in the mandal. However, the contractors, field assistants and officials completed only 75 per cent works and did not pay the amount to labourers.

AP Vyavasaya Karima Sangham district secretary Anvesh submitted a memorandum in this regard to collector M.T. Dhana Kishore on Tuesday. The collector who took the issue seriously, called up the District Water Management Agency (DWMA) project director and directed him to probe into the alleged irregularities.

He also called up the Kajipet mandal revenue officer over phone and directed him to probe into the alleged irregularities in works taken up under NREG scheme and submit a report, Mr Anvesh said. The collector reportedly issued orders to stop the payment of cheques for Rs 50 lakhs worth works taken up under the scheme.

Nellore, Oct. 10: Hindu Temples Protection Committee would file a contempt petition against endowments department for auctioning the temple lands despite a High Court stay order dated May 30, 2006.
Addressing a media conference here on Tuesday, State general secretary of the committee M. Kamal Kumar came down heavily on the endowments department for turning a blind eye to the court order.

He said that the endowment authorities have auctioned 10 acres belonging to Chalamaiah Satram in Guntur on August 28 besides another piece of land situated five-kilometre from Sattenapalli on the plea that it is located in an urban area.

He said that the department had also issued a notice on September 5 to auction four acres of temple lands belonging to Giddaperumallu Swamy, on the outskirts of Karimnagar town. Stressing that the land is located adjacent to the temple, he ridiculed the department for its failure to protect the land.

He criticised endowments minister J.C. Diwakar Reddy for favouring the auction of temple land located in urban areas. “Large extent of temple lands located in rural areas fall under the jurisdiction of urban areas following the formation of new civic bodies and corporations,” Mr Kamal Kumar said, alleging that endowment department is taking advantage of this to auction these lands.

He said that half of the 3.76 lakhs acres of temple lands in the State would disappear if the government continues to encourage the auctions.

Nellore, Oct. 10: The Institute of Electronic Governance (IEG) of Government of Andhra Pradesh has identified Dr Bezwada Gopal Reddy Women’s Academy (local women’s degree college) for campus placement mission through Jawahar Knowledge Centre (JKC).

The JKC would extend training to the final year students of the institution on industry-related technical and soft skills. Hitherto the JKCs are established in reputed engineering colleges spread across the State to increase the standards of higher education. Jawahar Bharathi Engineering College in Kavali and Audisankara College of Engineering Technology in Gudur are the only two colleges which have the JKCs in the district so far.

According to Mr J.V. Reddy, correspondent of the academy, for the first time a degree college was selected for JKC in the district. In JKC, students are trained in technical skills, soft skills, project management skills and communication skills by employing accelerated learning strategies with a mentor-student ratio of 1:5. A team of qualified and skilled individuals from JKC, an offspring of IEG, will select students for the training, who scored above 65 per cent marks.

The training includes promotion of curriculum improvement to meet the needs of the industry as well as the government. The 100-day intensive training would be followed by 20-day placement activity for the graduates. Selected students have to pay Rs 1,000 for training as per the guidelines of the JKC.

Explaining the programme to this newspaper, Mr J.V. Reddy said that a team from IEG inspected the college two months ago and selected it to establish the JKC, as it was satisfied with the infrastructure. He said that many final year students have shown interest in joining the programme after listening to the salient features when Nithin Reddy of IEG delivered a lecture recently.

College principal S. Raghava Reddy thanked the government for extending the programme to the degree colleges while stressing the need for exposure on the needs of the industry to the students.

Ongole, Oct. 10: The Ministry of Environment gave its nod to the fisheries department to construct a jetty (landing stage for boats) at the Gundayapalem in the mandal for the benefit of fishermen community. Earlier, the fisheries department has sent proposals to the Centre for permission to construct a jetty at a cost of Rs.1.63 crore.

Gundayapalem, where river Gundlakamma meets the sea, is a suitable place for the construction of jetty. The proposed jetty would benefit hundreds of fishermen, who could anchor their boats even during cyclone disasters. As per the proposals concrete platforms and buildings will be constructed in a five-acre land at Gundayapalem.

Speaking to this newspaper, Mr Lakshminarayana, assistant director, department of fisheries, said that for the first time a jetty would be constructed in the district. Fishermen could repair their nets, boats and sell their produce at the landing stage.

Prakasam district has a vast coastline of 102 km with 72 fishermen habitations. The fishermen in the district possess 3,500 country-made boats and over 1,300 mechanised boats which help them catch over 12,000 metric tonnes of fish, prawn and other sea products every year.

Unfortunately, these fishermen don’t have basic amenities for several years. They don’t have facilities to sell their catch, to repair their boats and nets. During the cyclones, boats anchored near the sea are getting damaged.

Fishermen from not only Prakasam but from other districts also catch sea products along the district coast. Some of their problems could be resolved with the construction of a jetty. Fishermen from Nellore, Guntur, Krishna, East and West Godavari also get benefited from the jetty. The department of fisheries is now waiting for release of funds from the State government for construction of jetty.

Rajahmundry, Oct. 10: In order to contain the spread of viral fever dengue, medical and health personnel in East and West Godavari districts took up an awareness drive among the general public on the symptoms of the fever to help them seek medical help from the nearest health centre without delay.

The people who suffered the sting of Aedes mosquito will develop symptoms like high fever, rashes on the skin, body and joint pains, vomiting, nausea, post orbital pain in the eye balls and also suffer dehydration. Infected people develop dengue fever at the first instance and later they suffer haemorrhage and at the final stage, they suffer shock syndrome.

West Godavari district medical and health officer D.S. Sarma said that they had equipped all the health centres including primary health centres (PHCs) in the villages with the necessary antibiotics to distribute to the patients who approach them with dengue symptoms.

He said that to tackle the water and vector-borne fevers like malaria, dengue and chikungunya, they were roping in anganwadi workers and school teachers to bring about awareness among the general public and students to avoid falling prey to the diseases.

Administration in both the districts initiated measures to give widespread publicity on dos and don’ts to avoid the spread of the dengue fever. They advised the general public not to allow the stagnation of fresh water in flower pots, air coolers, broken coconut shells, abandoned tyres for long time as they could become breeding ground for the mosquitoes.

As a part of the action plan to contain vector-borne fevers, malathion was being sprayed in three phases at various parts covering plain, upland and Agency areas in both the districts. The general public are also advised not to approach quacks for any medical help. Meanwhile, in East Godavari there were no reports of fevers even in Agency areas thanks to the regular spraying of malathion.

According to district malaria officer Y. Mallikharjuna Rao, on an average they used to receive a minimum of 20 cases of fever for 1,000 persons in the Agency villages. But with the regular health measures, the number of cases dwindled further. Meanwhile, a seven-year- old boy A. Sairam from the city suspected to be suffering from dengue was referred to a hospital at Visakhapatnam by the health officials.

Kakinada, Oct 10: The non-availability of water and changing agricultural needs prompted a search for alternative resources in upland areas in East Godavari district. In this backdrop, the State government has taken up a special programme in 10 upland mandals of East Godavari to ensure effective usage of available water resources. The District Water Management Agency (DWMA) has taken up this programme by promoting micro irrigation and watersheds.

Under this programme, integrated wasteland development, enterprise promotion in watershed programme, productivity enhancement in watershed programme were taken up in the district. For effective management check-dams, staggered trenches, percolation tanks and farm ponds were taken by DWMA.

Under this programme water from ridge to valley would be managed at different places en route. The water thus saved would be let in to tanks in the final stages for agriculture purpose.The DWMA which took up the programme in 2002 considers 500 hectares as one unit and in total 50 such units were taken up in the upland area of East Godavari.

The DWMA adopts ‘less water more productivity’ concept in these areas. The water through these sources would be effectively diverted to the needs of horticulture crops and for pulses which are economically viable.

Warangal, Oct. 10: Despite the raging controversy over the proposed sale of lands belonging to the Azam Jahi (AJ) Mills, the Kakatiya Urban Development Authority (Kuda) is going ahead with its plan.

The Kuda, as part of its proposed sale of lands, is learnt to have got some soil samples tested from the now defunct mills site. Though the authorities stated that the sample testing was for the construction of the textile park, actually it was aimed at establishing the withstanding capacity of the land for huge constructions.

The Kuda authorities are tight-lipped about the soil testing and refused to comment. A senior official, on condition of anonymity, said that the Kuda had planned to sell a total of 165 acres land allotted to it by the State government in the first phase.

He said that more than Rs 100 crores would be raised at one go by the sale of AJ Mills lands and the city development would get a shot in the arm from the funds. In a new development, the Kuda has also stepped up its lobbying to get the government’s nod for acquiring the lands belonging to the central jail and Mamnoor aerodrome. The urban body is proposing to allot alternative lands for the central jail and the aerodrome.

Warangal, Oct. 10: The Telugu Desam (TD)’s technical team headed by Choppadandi MLA Sana Maruti on Tuesday squarely blamed the poor quality of construction works for the Gundlavagu project washout.

The three-member technical team, which inspected the Gundlavagu project site, demanded that the Congress government take the total responsibility for the project washout. The TD team also said that it would file a private criminal case against the project contractor for ignoring the quality norms in the construction.

“Not even a single quality norm was adhered to in the construction of the project. Any engineer would be shocked at the poor quality of the construction. We are ready for any open debate on the project,” said Mr Maruti.

Refuting the claim of the contractor that the unprecedented rainfall was the main reason for the project washout, Mr Maruti questioned if that was the reason why no other tank or project in the area got washed out. He said that the construction samples from the project washout would be sent to the National Institute of Technology and AP Research Laboratories for quality testing.

The retired chief engineer-turned-MLA also cautioned against the proposed “repairs” by using the project washout remains. Mr Maruti said that only entire reconstruction with better quality would ensure the strength of the project.

He demanded stringent action against the erring contractor and other officials involved in the construction and supervision of the project that resulted in the loss of Rs 11.5 crores of public money. Expert engineers Hanmai Shinde and Ramana Naik and the district TD unit leaders took part.

Suspends sanitary inspector

Vijayawada, Oct.10: Minister for panchayat raj and endowments J.C. Diwakar Reddy on Tuesday paid a surprise visit to Kanaka Durga temple. The minister went around the temple, taking note of conditions and grilled the officials on the temple’s state of affairs.

The minister, who found a heap of garbage at the temple entrance, immediately suspended sanitary inspector T. Venkateswara Rao for his negligence in discharging the duties. Mr Diwakar Reddy reiterated that no move was being made to confine Tirumala seven hills to two hills and said he was misquoted by the media. “I said according to the British records, the diameter exists up to only two hills. The seven hills belong Lord Venkateshwara and it is an undeniable fact,” he told the reporters.

Mr Diwakar Reddy said that efforts were being made to save temple lands in and around Krishna district that were encroached. “The lands that are left vacant would be soon identified by Urban Development Authority (UDA) for development and will be sold at a later stage. We are not going to forgo even a small bit that belongs to the temple,” he said.

Mr Diwakar Reddy also enquired about the long pending gold work to the main temple mandap. “The government has identified a few temples in the State for which Rs 2,500 is being granted for maintenance. Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy is aware of poor living conditions of archakas and that is why we did not introduce any kind of reservation in Indiramma scheme.

The economically poor would be benefited,” the minister said. The Minister also took part in scholarship distribution to poor in another programme.

Guntur, Oct. 10: The Amaralingeswara temple of Amaravathi is unable to take control of its abundant assets in Tamil Nadu, thanks to the recalcitrant attitude of officials in that State. It is learnt that TN officials have been using one pretext after another to avoid discussions on the issue.

Recently, a team led by additional secretary (revenue) Sudha Rani went to Chennai to discuss the issue with top TN officials including the chief secretary. But it too turned out to be a futile exercise. Executive officer of Amaralingeswara temple Veera Reddy, who was a member of the team, said the TN officials said that talks could only be held after the local bodies’ polls.

The team apprised the TN officials of the details of the assets and urged them to speed up the process of handing them over. The Sadavarthi Choultry of Amavarathi, which is under the control of the temple, has abundant land assets in Tamil Nadu.

Some crucial documents related to the lands were found a few years ago and after making relentless efforts, district endowment officials found out that the choultry owned 471.65 acres of land at Thalambur village near Chennai.

Since then, endowment officials have been requesting TN officials to surrender the land, but in vain. Endowments minister J.C. Diwakar Reddy visited Tamil Nadu twice with all the documents but nothing happened.

It is learnt that much of the land in the village had been allotted to several groups, including some ex-service men. Nearly 100 acres were given to software development organisations and leading engineering colleges.

Thalambur village is situated next to Semmancheri and Navalur villages on Old Mahabalipuram Road. “Cost of land in that area has gone up to Rs 4 to 5 crores per acre,” said Mr Veera Reddy. TN is reluctant to hand over and is initially suggested providing land at a different location. Later, it changed its mind and proposed to pay the price of the land at government rates. At present, its strategy is to postpone the talks citing various reasons.

Meetings to be organised on child labour issue

Visakhapatnam, Oct. 10: With the ban on employment of children as domestic servants taking effect from Tuesday in the entire country, the office of deputy labour commissioner here swung into action and organised a sensitisation programme.
Deputy commissioner of labour M.N. Varahala Reddy said that officials from 13 departments were drafted to identify and rescue children below the age of 14 years who are engaged as labourers.

“We will take the help of non-governmental organisations and women’s organisations to conduct meetings in apartment complexes to create awareness against employing children below the age of 14 as domestic helps,” he said. As per the ban imposed under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, child labour is prohibited in houses, dhabas, restaurants, resorts motels, teashops, spas and other recreational centres.

Under the Act, if anyone employs children below 14 years as domestic servants, they could be imprisoned up to one year or made to pay fines ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000. Similarly, officers of the Central and State government department violating the act would be dismissed from service or imprisoned for a year and penalised.

Talking to this correspondent, Mr Reddy said the programme was launched in three phases in the district. This includes, vigorous campaign in the electronic and print media, conducting raids on suspected homes and hotels employing children and in the last phase rehabilitate the rescued children and admit them in schools.

Mr Reddy said from January to October 2006, a total of 3,759 child labourers were rescued in Srik-akulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts and they were being rehabilitated. But prior to this, the officials began setting their own houses in order to prevent employment of child labour.

“I my self had to fight with my father on entry of our maid’s 15-year-old daughter today. I suspected she could be below 14 and asked my father not to allow her for work. But he ran to school and checked her date of birth and called from there to say she crossed 15,” the deputy commissioner said. Mr Reddy said to begin with all the officials in the district were being asked to educate their own family members so that others could take a cue from them.

Vizianagaram, Oct. 10: Over three lakhs devotees attended the annual Sirimanotsav of Goddess Paidithallamma from north coastal Andhra districts and from neighbouring districts of Orissa here on Tuesday. Serpentine queues were seen at the temple since midnight for darshan of the Goddess and all roads leading to Three Lanterns were jam-packed.

Temple chief priest B. Bhairagi Naidu performed special puja at the temple. Later, the Sirimanu chariot made three rounds between the temple and Vizianagar fort where hereditary trustee P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju and other VIPs sat.

Since the temple trustees present at the fort belong to Opposition party, minister for marketing Botsa Satyanarayana, zilla parishad chairperson Botsa Jhansi Lakshmi, district collector B. Kishore and others witnessed the event from district co-operative central bank premises.

While the municipality took up measures to maintain total sanitation under the direct supervision of commissioner S.S. Varma, the endowments department has deployed staff summoned from other temples.

District superintendent of police Vik-ram Singh Mann made elaborate band-obust arrangements and traffic diversions by deploying sufficient number of police personnel. The RTC too has plied special services from various parts of the district and Visakhapatnam.