Govt officials to visit villages to resolve public grievances

Mysore, Apr 7 (UNI) A novel programme is all set to be introduced in the district from April 16, whereby all officials of the taluk and district level will visit the villages atleast two days a week to lend an ear to public grievances and solve them on the spot.

Addressing media persons here today, Karnataka Cooperative and district in charge Minister G T Deve Gowda said he had instructed the officials to select a particular village under a specific gram panchayat for their rural visits. The pilot programme would be kicked off from Halebedu in Hunsur taluk and later launched all over the State. Officials have to hold people's meetings in all the villages in the district with prior notice and take action to solve the grievances within 100 days. After the meeting, they should print a booklet the next day about the programmes implemented and release it to the media persons.

He said he had instructed the officials to take action on the letters written by the Chief Minister's Office following his Janata Darshan programme. Besides, the officials and the elected representative should work towards ensuring that the benefits of the programmes of the coalition Government went to eligible persons.

Mr Gowda held a review meeting of the drought situation in the district and ordered release of Rs one crore immedidately to supply drinking water to the worst-hit villages. Nearly 124 villages in the district were facing severe water scarcity. No rain was recorded this year as against the average rainfall of 22 mm during this period and 65.8 mm during this period last year. All the borewells had dried up and the ground water table had gone down. The Government had taken serious steps to supply drinking water to the villages.

He said Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy had convened a meeting of all Deputy Commissioners and Zilla Panchayat CEOs in Bangalore on April nine and ten to discuss, among other issues, the drought situation.

The Minister also held a review meeting at the Corporation and took to task officials on the collection of property tax dues of about Rs 21 crore and set a deadline of April 30 for the collection.

UNI