The gherao of the Nuapada district Collector’s office on June 8 by tribals of Sunabeda and Soseng panchayats seems to have yielded result.
According to a Press release by the district office, Collector Md Sidiq Alam visited different villages of the two panchayats on Monday to get firsthand report on the problems of the area. Returning to the headquarters in the evening, the Collector conducted a meeting with different district-level officials like the PD, DRDA, CDMO, DSWO, DWO, Deputy Director, Planning, Deputy Director, Agriculture, Executive Engineer, RWSS, and directed them to take immediate action on the needs of people.
Alam visited Sunabeda, Soseng, Adar, Cherechuan, Jamgaon and many other villages and supervised various ongoing development projects. He saw three road construction works under the PMGSY and instructed the officials for their quick completion. While visiting the Primary Health Centre of Sunabeda and ANM centre of Soseng, he came to know about the absence of health functionaries like the doctor, pharmacist and the ANM. He was also informed about the lack of medicines in these centres.
He visited different tribal residential schools in the plateaus and found a lot of inadequacies like shortage of classrooms, toilets and staff quarters, and delay in construction of the 40-bed hostels, etc.
During supervision of IAY and MGNREGS programme, the Collector was informed about delayed payments. He also visited the Anganwadi Centres and found some of the buildings incomplete.
The Collector also interacted with people, who drew his attention to the problems relating to drinking water, communication, solar lights, electricity, education and agriculture. Reiterating their demands that they had raised during the gherao of Collector’s office like completion of the road from Cherechuan to Jamgaon and supply of electricity, the people also demanded supply of free seeds, installation of solar pumps in tribal residential schools, supply of malaria and other medicines for waterborne diseases, appointment of pharmacists, facility of maternity care centre, ambulance service, inclusion of deserving persons under different pension schemes and universal coverage under Aadhaar, etc,.
The Collector was accompanied by Nuapada SP Pinaka Mishra. SOG jawans provided security to the Collector and the SP during their visit.
“The visit of the Collector to our area has created hope among us, but there is need to monitor the progress every month,” said Biju Jhankar of Sunabeda.