Andhra CM Naidu wants District Collectors' meet to be foundation for state's development

Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh) [India], August 5 : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday told the District Collectors that the meeting on Monday at the Secretariat should be the beginning of the development of the state.
Stating that the previous government had laid the stone for the demolition of the Praja Vedika, Naidu told the District Collectors that this meeting will lay the foundation stone for the state's development.
Addressing the maiden collectors conference after becoming the Chief Minister, Naidu directed the officials to mingle with people on the 1st of every month in the program christened as 'Pedala Sevalo' (in service of the poor). He further informed that a vision document would also be released on October 2 for the development of the state and further mentioned that the state has very efficient officers but in the past five years they have totally rendered the state the most ineffective one.
Naidu expressed his regret on the fact that Andhra Pradesh had been hit very badly with the inefficient policies of the previous government and stressed the need to restore the very label of the state.
He told the IAS officers to make frequent ground-level visits and respond to the appeals of the people from a human angle.
"There is every need that the officers should accord proper importance to the advice being given by the local ministers and MLAs and implement their ideas," Naidu said. He also directed the bureaucrats to properly counter the fake propaganda spread by certain elements with some vested interest to defame the government.
"The bureaucrats and the heads of various departments (HoDs) should counter in a suitable manner the mispropaganda through their social media accounts and disseminate information that is useful for the public," he said.
Stating that the District Collectors conference was a historic one, Naidu said that since 1995 he had been giving clear directions to the Collectors at such conferences.
"I am confident that Monday's conference is going to rewrite history. The decisions that we are going to take should pave a better way for future generations. I am confident that by 2029 the state will emerge as the third largest economy as our state has historical advantages," he said.
Naidu expressed his happiness on the people for giving a historic verdict to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the last elections.
"There are now various kinds of issues to rebuild the state, including various financial problems. We all can understand how the administration was in the past five years, as not even a single conference of the District Collectors was organised in this period," he stated.
"If all of us think in a positive manner, poverty can easily be alleviated. The rivers should be interlinked to supply irrigation water to every acre to generate wealth," Naidu said, further emphasising that they should think in an innovative manner with the slogan 'Work Hard, Work Smart and Think Globally."
Naidu also directed the District Collectors to prepare an action plan to fill the reservoirs and ponds so that every drop of water can be utilised properly.
Naidu directed the district collectors to take steps to fill all the drinking water tanks in the state on time and to aim for water irrigation, supplying every acre of farmland with a focus on crop growth with minimum water usage.
He stressed the need for interlinking all the rivers of the state and said that the state has five main rivers, the Krishna, the Godavari, the Pennar, the Nagavali and the Vamsadhara, and 35 small rivers besides 38,422 minor irrigation facilities.
Pointing out that four crore acres of ayakut need to be irrigated in all the 26 districts in the state, he wanted to make use of every drop of water in the ongoing rainy season.
He also directed the collectors to review the revival of all the lift irrigation schemes that can be completed with minimum expenditure and he asked them to coordinate with the officials of the Agricultural Department on encouraging the high-yielding crops that can be grown with less utilisation of irrigation water.
Naidu was particular about the supply of irrigation water, even to the tail-end areas and told the collectors to carefully monitor the process of release of water to canals and take timely decisions.
He also suggested the collectors to monitor canals and irrigation projects through drones.