Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy’s one-day visit to the agency area in Visakhapatnam concluded amidst high security.
Being a Maoist stronghold, around 2,000 police personnel, led by superintendent of police G Srinivas had maintained strict vigil and patrolling in the agency pockets since the last three days.
As per schedule, Reddy arrived at Visakhapatnam and rushed to Chintapalle by a special chopper, where he laid foundation stones and inaugurated several development works for agency area.
After participating in a series of programmes, Reddy addressed a public meeting at GK Veedhi, where thousands of tribals gathered for the hearing.
Reddy announced a new scheme Rajiv Bala Sanjeevani (RBS), which aims to provide medical assistance to three lakh tribal students in 667 schools. Under RBS, one doctor and a nurse, along with necessary medicines, would visit each school every fortnight to monitor health of the students. He also sanctioned 22 exclusive ambulance services to the tribal pockets, named 105 service. As many as 78 new ambulances for the tribals across the state under 108 service were also announced.
Of the six polytechnic colleges sanctioned in the state by the government, one was allotted to Chintapalle. Reddy also announced a skill development centre at Chintapalle, which will be set up at a cost of `3 crore, which will aim at promoting handicraft and other skills for tribal youth in the pockets.
Union minister of tribal welfare and Panchayat Raj Y Kishore Chandra Deo said the Centre was laying new roads to proivde easy transport for tribal hamlets which have a minimum population of 250 persons.
That was being undertaken at a cost of `246 crore, he said, adding that the state government had sanctioned a new scheme to provide houses to each tribal family at a cost of `4,000.
Deo expressed Central government’s helplessness in releasing Panchayat Raj funds to the state as the government was not conducting elections for the panchayats. Unless, election was conducted and local bodies formed, there was no chance to the funds would be released, Deo said.
Speaking on Maoists, Union minister of environment and forests Jairam Ramesh said wherever ruling of the government was stable, there was less or no maoist impact in the country. He said 82 districts across the country were affected by the Maoists.
The meeting was presided over by Union Minister for Tribal Welfare (AP) P Balaraju. Ministers K Jana Reddy, Dharmana Prasada Rao, Satrucherla Vijayarama Raju and Ganta Srinivasa Rao were present.