The residents of Garrepalli in Sultanabad mandal had an unexpected guest on Saturday evening. District Collector Sikta Patnaik, along with a team of district and mandal officials, arrived in the village as part of ‘Palle Nidra’ (night stay at village) programme to take stock of the ongoing works.
No time to pause
Just after reaching, she inspected the Haritha Haram nursery at the gram panchayat office and later toured the entire village traversing over 1 km to review Palle Pragathi works.
She also visited the primary health centre in the village where she examined the register for details on in-patients and out-patients, distribution of KCR kits and attendance of staff, among other facilities.
She inspected the Zilla Parishad High School, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya and TS residential school where she interacted with the students, particularly those preparing for the forthcoming SSC exams and gave them a pep talk.
She then dined with the students of the residential school and took rest in the hostel.
Gram sabha held
On Sunday morning, the Collector went around the village interacting with the villagers and exchanging pleasantries. She watered the saplings planted under Haritha Haram. Later, she participated in a gram sabha and informed about the new Panchayat Raj Act and the importance of the Palle Pragathi programme in keeping villages clean and tidy.
She instructed the authorities to complete construction of crematorium within 15 days and asked village revenue officials to solve elderly women’s problems pertaining to biometric collection of ration from shops by taking them to MeeSeva centre. She also told them to address the pending non-issuance of passbooks and take measures for increasing enrolment in government schools.
Ms. Patnaik also spoke to farmers and advised to reduce the use of fertilizers and opt for organic farming.
Better connect
Stating that the objective of Palle Nidra was aimed to interact with villagers and review all priority programmes such as ongoing works, survival of plants under Haritha Haram, tractors and other issues, she said, “If we spend more time with villagers, we will get more ideas, and we will understand the problems and solve them accordingly.”
MPP Balaji Rao, sarpanch Veeragoni Sujatha, MPTC member Puli Anusha, ZP CEO Vinod, RDO Shankar Kumar, DPO Sudarshan, DEO Jaganmohan Reddy and DAO Tirumal Prasad were also present.
