Republic Day celebrated on a grand note

Kurnool: The 69th Republic Day celebrations were celebrated on a grand scale in the district on Friday. District Collector S Satyanarayana has unfurled the tri-colour flag and received the guard of honour at Police Parade Grounds here.

District Judge Anupama Chakravarthy, city MLA SV Mohan Reddy, District Superintendent of Police (SP) Gopinath Jetty and Joint Collector V Prasanna Venkatesh participated as chief guests. In his speech, the Collector listed out the development taking place in the district.

He said the district has a cultivable land of 6.36 lakh hectares. Under the farm mechanisation, Rs 30.6 crore worth farm machinery was supplied. So far, we have sanctioned agricultural loans worth Rs 3,293 crore out of a target of Rs 3297 crore for Kharif and for Rabi, Rs 630 crore have been sanctioned out of a target of Rs 1,533 crore, he added.

Furthermore, the District Collector said that fodder cultivation centres have been set up at a cost of Rs 10 crore to overcome the shortage. “Water from Handri Neeva Sujala Sravanthi (HNSS) has been extended to 80,000 acres and 100 lift irrigation schemes have been completed at a cost of Rs 532 crore,” he stated, adding the long pending project Siddhapuram Lift Irrigation was recently inaugurated by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu.

Satyanarayana said that under the second phase of NTR Jala Siri scheme, 838 borewells have been dug up on the lands allotted to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes at a cost of Rs 4.59 crore. Under the DRDA-Velugu scheme, the Collector stated bank linkage loans of Rs 325 crore have been sanctioned to 10,538 groups. 

The construction of 4,246 houses with a unit cost of Rs 2 lakh under NTR Rural Scheme has been taken up for which Rs 84.92 crore would be sanctioned, he mentioned. So far, 1.4 lakh individual latrines from the target of 2.18 lakh were constructed, said the Collector. Later, tableaus of various departments were exhibited. The cultural performances of the students have enthralled the onlookers.

Around 409 officers across the district were awarded with appreciation certificates. In another programme, Municipal Corporation of Kurnool Commissioner CB Harinath Reddy also unfurled the tri-colour flag on the Corporation premises. He also participated in the celebrations organised at Kothapeta, where he was the chief guest. He said that Kothapeta would be renamed after freedom fighter SD Narayana Rao.