Andhra Pradesh: Village, ward secretaries told to provide wide publicity to schemes

Amaravati: Ajay Jain, Principal Secretary of the Department of Village and Ward Secretariats, along with G S Naveen Kumar, Commissioner and Director, and Dhanunjaya Reddy, advisor to government on village and ward secretariats, advised the village and ward secretaries to display four important things at all the Secretariats throughout the State.

They spoke over a teleconference to 15,004 village and ward secretaries and the other staff on Friday.

All the Joint Collectors, who are looking after the issues of village and ward secretariat system, also participated from their respective districts.

Ajay Jain emphasised the vision of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in establishing the village and ward secretariats to bring administration closer to people.

Referring to the four important things to be displayed at the secretariats, he said that the details of each welfare scheme, the eligibility criteria and the procedure for application along with the list of beneficiaries selected under each scheme should be displayed. Likewise, list of all the important phone numbers of the government useful for the citizens, display of calendar of welfare activities for the next one year and list of services which are 540 in number available in the village and ward secretariats should also be prominently displayed at all the secretariats, he said.

The Principal Secretary said that surprise inspections would be conducted by the State and district-level officials to check whether all the above four things are prominently displayed or not and in the absence of any, the panchayat secretary would be held responsible for the lapses.

He directed the secretariat staff to ensure that they attend the secretariat office regularly and render services to the citizens. He also directed them to make wide publicity with the help of volunteers about the number of services which are available at the secretariats. Within a short span of time around 33 lakh services have been delivered through VSWS Department and this number should increase with each passing day, he said.

He said that the Chief Minister had launched four important services on June 9 – pensions and rice cards within 10 working days, Aarogyasri card within 20 working days and issue of house sites within 90 working days. All the staff are directed to ensure that they adhere to the above timelines and in case of any delay they would be held responsible and even compensation may have to be given to the citizen.

Further, all the staff and Volunteers were requested to ensure that no eligible person shall be left in the various welfare schemes like "Pedalandariki Illu", Jagananna Thodu and YSR Cheyutha which are being implemented at present.