“SWACHH PRASHASAN” IS ESSENTIAL TO ACCOMPLISH “SWACHH BHARATH” Launch of Swachh Bharath Abyan (SBA): NDA Government under Sri Narendra Modi leadership took up cleanliness drive as its flagship program and launched it in big way on 2 nd October,2014 (Gandhi Jayanti) and declared that India will be litter free nation by 2 nd October,2019.   The Government gave thrust to program by announcing brand ambassadors, involving corporates, conducting special drives, massive toilets construction program and  special tax (Swachh Bharath tax) is introduced. In reality it is nothing but an extension of UPA program “ Nirmal Bharath Abyan ” by changing the name to “ Swachh Bharath Abyan ”, with a promise of better delivery with measurable indicators. First three years there were lot of  campaigns, photo sessions of celebrities, corporates, political personalities with cleanliness drives, hungama from SBA ambassadors and enough hype was created. During last one year there is not much t

*NAKED TRUTHS - INFORMATION FLOW IN GOVERNMENT - EXPERIENCE SHARING OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT * As gathered from a mandal education officer (MEO), there are about 650 students wrote 10th board exam from that mandal and out of 650 only 50 are from private schools and balance from Govt schools i.e., over 92% is from Govt schools. The same he presented to his DEO, subsequently the information is flown to Collector, Director, Secretary, Minister Education and to CM through series of Video conferences and created an impression that everything is very good. Unfortunately the ground realities are different. From the same mandal about 1000 students studied in private schools in near by towns and wrote 10th exam from there. As these are studying in schools out of the mandal, MEO conveniently avoided reporting about them. I am sure everyone in this system knew ground realities, but none are willing to touch the honeycomb. If no one is interested in looking at  ground realities and survive b

PINEAPPLES FROM SEETHAMPETA, SRIKAKULAM DIST  The well known local variety of pineapple”Simhachalam” which is very sweet with juicy pulp and gold colour  is grown in about 15000 acres in Savara tribal pockets of Palkonda and Seethampeta mandals. The quality of fruit in this area is very good due to traditional organic cultivation practices of tribals. The soils are very rich with good amount of organic matter. These pineapples contain more vitamins and protein when compare to the same fruit grown in commercial Agriculture areas. Despite the presence of ITDA, Horti Dept, Velugu, ZBNF, number of FPOs there is hardly any aggregation and marketing support, forget about value addition and storage systems. Local sandies with all sorts of exploitative methods is the only marketing venue for these poor tribals, Like the fate of most of agri commodities, the pineapple rates are Rs 6 to 8/ piece weighing around 1 to 1.5 kgs as against last year rates of Rs 14 to 18.  This is the re

JANMABHOOMI-SMALL INITIATIVE CAN BE OF GREAT HELP AP is having second summer due to monsoon failure and standing crops are wilting for shortage of water. Due to limited time power availability, all pump sets have to run at same time, resulting in transformers tripping due to excess load. The problem is much more in islands like ours where crop coverage is 100% due to abundant water availability.  Farmers came with a request to get one electricity Dept helper posted so that their maintenance issues can be resolved. I immediately escalated the issue and got it resolved by convincing the Dept. The existing transformer are insufficient due to upgradation of many pump sets from to 3 to 5 HP. Farmers paid necessary charges for such upgradation. The issue of transformers overload and related issues with complete details was brought to the notice of the dept and convinced them for the need of adding more transformers on urgent basis. One transformer they promised to install in next tw