Ongole: Village Secretariats to implement schemes to beneficiaries

Ongole: District Collector Dr Pola Bhaskara said that Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy wanted the ward and village secretariat to be made into a single office to provide all services to all of the eligible beneficiaries. In a special interview with 'The Hans India' here on Wednesday, the Collector opined that the secretariats were streamlining by overcoming the initial hiccups after one month of functioning.

Bhaskara explained that the ward secretariats offer 570 plus services while the village secretariats offer 350 plus services to the public under their limits. He said that earlier, staff from various departments used to offer a number of services to the public but they lacked coordination between the departments. But now, he said that the staff under 11 departments work in convergence mode under one roof.

He explained with an example that earlier the ANMs used to work at 535 sub-centers in the district and their operations are not available to a few villages regularly. Now, the government recruited extra ANMs to work in all 884 village secretariats to provide the health services at the doorstep of the public. Similarly, the agriculture or horticulture assistants are providing services to all farmers, who didn't get a chance to utilize the services of AEOs and MPEOs earlier. The Raitu Bharosa centers working with the village secretariats would be of great help to the farmers now, he added.

The surveying assistants at all village secretariats can provide easy and fast services to the farmers while the engineering assistants are being helpful in the works of Nadu Nedu, roads, buildings, compound walls for schools, housing needs.

The collector said that the chief minister was conducting a review meeting on the functioning of secretariats on every Tuesday. He said that the chief minister wants the administration to resolve all petitions from the eligible persons to provide the benefits of welfare schemes.

He assured that all village secretariats will provide full services, and the staff works with the professional expertise by March 31.