Ongole: Minister Balineni Srinivasa Reddy lambasts SEB for booking cases against housing beneficiaries

Ongole: Minister for Energy, Environment, Forests, Science and Technology Balineni Srinivasa Reddy came down heavily on the Special Enforcement Bureau and accused some officials of the agency of overaction.

The Minister participated in a review meeting on the development of Ongole Assembly constituency at the municipal corporation here on Thursday. Speaking at the meeting, Minister Srinivasa Reddy observed that construction of many houses was being delayed due to unavailability of sand to poor beneficiaries.

He mentioned that the SEB officials booked cases on the vehicles transporting sand for the construction of a house at Madanuru in Kothapatnam mandal, registered a case on a beneficiary, who brought sand about 10 days earlier at Koppolu. 'Cases were also filed on the owners of bullock carts for transporting sand to the beneficiaries.' He said that the SEB officers are troubling the beneficiaries for transporting sand, but, failing in controlling illegal liquor business and transport in the district.

Balineni said that the officers were overacting in sand issue even though the sale is awarded to a private agency and questioned how the poor beneficiaries will complete construction of houses, if they were booking cases on them. He ordered the SEB to keep stock of sand for selling to the beneficiaries as per the guidelines and take action against the violators.

Responding to the other subjects, the Minister pointed out that sanitation is poor in the town and ordered the officials to take measures for improving sanitation immediately. He ordered them to initiate steps to address drinking water issues in the town and complete pending works for Rs 68.28 crore under the AMRUT scheme.

Later, the Minister flagged off 47 new garbage collection vehicles allotted to the town under Jagananna Swachha Sankalpam programme.

District Collector Pravin Kumar, Joint Collectors J Venkata Murali and K Krishnaveni, Mayor Gangada Sujatha, Assistant Collector Sethu Madhavan, Kandukur Sub-Collector Aparajitha Singh, Additional SP K Chowdeswari, RDO Prabhakar Reddy and others also participated in the meeting.