Eluru: Building plans to get approval online for the benefit of people in rural areas from December 1 in West Godavari. West Godavari Collector K. Bhaskar in a meeting held with the officials here on Friday stated that to avoid the role of middlemen and ensure transparency, they were going to take up online approval of building plans by the authorities concerned.
He said that all services at gram panchayats were made online so that every rupee paid by the people would be remitted in the bank. Mr Bhaskar said that earlier, tax collectors used to keep the collected money with them and used to pay only by the end of March and added that this caused abuse of money and the gram panchayats failed to get funds at proper time to take up developmental works in the villages.
The district collector instructed gram panchayat authorities to pay more attention on maintenance of sanitation in the villages and said that nearly Rs 400 crore was being spent on medicines by the people per annum as they were falling victim to health problems due to poor maintenance of sanitation. He said that huge dumps of garbage, clogged drains, stray pigs and dogs and mosquito menace were affecting the health of the people.
Mr Bhaskar directed the officials to make the solid waste management sheds ready in all gram panchayats in two weeks' time and felt the need to divert all solid waste to the sheds. He instructed the panchayat secretaries and other officials working in gram panchayats to stay put at their work places to ensure proper maintenance of sanitation. Referring to installation of targeted 2.70 lakh LED bulbs in 909 gram panchayats in the district, he said that only 5,000 bulbs were installed so far.
He questioned officials why they failed to install those bulbs as the set deadline is on or before November and wondered as to why they failed to be installed, though the exercise was supposed to be completed by end of November 30. Reacting on vendors' response that they were unable to mobilise material for installation of LED bulbs, he asked them as to why they filed tenders when they were unable to procure and install them as per schedule.
