ALLEGATIONS OF ILLEGAL DETENTION OF CHILDREN BY CHURCH

The district administration of Rayagada was informed by the local media about illegal detention and harassment by a church in Rayagada town. Total 89 children of which a majority were from Sundergarh district of Orissa are reportedly in their custody. Collector Rayagada sent Tahsildar Rayagada to conduct a prima facie inquiry and report for further action. Tahsildar has confirmed that there appears to be something wrong in this whole affair and Collector Rayagada immediately constituted a three member committee comprising of Tahsildar Rayagada, DSWO Rayagada and DLO Rayagada to conduct further inquiry and to take necessary action in this matter. The CWC has also been requested to lodge an FIR in Rayagada Police station against any wrong doing by the church authorities. Meanwhile all the children have been rescued and taken to Adruta orphange.

NATIONAL WORKSHOP ON IAP DISTRICTS IN NEW DELHI

Speaking to media persons after his arrival from Delhi, after attending the National workshop on Appropriate Development Strategies for effective implementation of Rural Development Schemes in IAP disrticts on 13th sep 2011, Collector Rayagada said that the government intends to have a real time assesment of the field situation in these 60 under developed and LWE afftected districts in the country from the field level machinery and devise appropriate policies for development. The honourable minister for Rural Development, Sri. Jairam Ramesh, was very keen about eliciting the feedback from the District Collectors and the ZP CEOs about the exisitng schemes for Rural development and how they can be improved.

Development in naxal affected areas is an intricate process, which requires coordinated efforts from the entire govt machinery including the security forces. This coordination can be seen as the strands of the rope, which when intertwined makes a strong rope that withstands any pressure. In naxal affected areas the development process can be effectively pushed forward by carefully roping in the capacities of different departments with that of the security forces of the state and the centre. The govt of India for this purpose has formed a three member committee, which is chaired by the Collector, and includes the Superintendent of Police and the DFO/DCF and given them funding under the Integrated Action Plan for development of critical gaps in the naxal affected areas. This ''Trimurti model" as it is popularly known now has effectively shown that when the felt needs of the people are addressed in the right earnest and in a timely fashion, it makes a big and good impact on the people and helps check the growth of naxalism and in the long run eradicate it totally.

The Collectors were unanimous about the suggestion that this model be continued for at least couple of years and that if the government trusts and supports its premier services, then the field officers can work out wonders, within a short period of time.

The Home minister and the prime minister also stressed the need for coordinated development in the naxal affected areas. The minister for Rural development also envisaged a bigger role for the Central para military forces in the development process on the lines of what is done in the most naxal afftected areas of Chattisgarh. For the state of Odisha, the DG CRPF was requested by the honourable minister to take up the work of Gurupriya bridge for the cut off area of Malkangiri, which has not been completed for many years now.

VISIT OF FARMERS COMMISSION ON 10.09.11

The farmers' commission under the chairmanship of Sri. S.K. Patnaik, IAS ( Retd) ( Ex Chief Secretary Orissa) and three other members, including Sri. Gadadhar Parida, former Koraput Collector, visited Rayagada district to interact wit the district administration, officials from Agriculture dept and the leading farmers of the Rayagada and Gajapati districts.
During the course of this interaction problems such as lack of proper and timely irrigation facilities, non availability of seeds and fertilizers, hassles in crop insurance and others were the major issues raised the farmers' representatives. Besides this, the lack of proper marketing support in the form of procurement at MSP was the major issue the farmers highlighted. Another important issue raised by some farmers was that of non availability of RGL Superfine variety of rice seeds in Orissa and their consequent dependance on the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh for that.

Collector Rayagada, Dr. Nitin.B.Jawle, while summarisng the discussion stressed the need for providing strong backward and forward linkages to the farming communities, as agriculture still continues to be 'gamble with the monsoons' in most parts of the state. While describing the success of agriculture in his home state of Maharashtra, he told that without the triad of strong backward linkage support mechanism in the form of assured irrigation facilities, timely supply of seeds and fertilizers and propers & timely technical inputs from officials of agriculture dept. the success in agriculture, in an otherwise arid and dry state like Maharashtra, wouldn't have been possible.

While admitting the fact that a lot needs to be on this count in the dsitricts of south Orissa, particularly undivided Koraput region of which Rayagada was a part, a lot of effort still goes into to providing timely assistance to the farmers, but beacuse of the overall infrastructural and other conditions of these areas, it, for most of the times, is not possible and as a result, neither the productivity has increased substantially , nor has there been much innovation in agricultural practices, other than the taking up of cotton as a major cash crop in the Rayagada region, which has been a result of influnce of the farming communities from Andhra.

Secondly, in matters of forward linkage in the form of marketing of agricultural produce, Collector Rayagada appraised the house, that an 'e- procurement' system, is planned to be undertaken in Rayagada district in the coming procurement season, based on the Biometric based TPDS project information which is available with the Civil supplies dept, which will ensure that the procurement is done from the bonafide farmers and that he gets his due. This will go a long way in checking the distress sale of paddy and help in bettering the financial condtion of farmers, especially marginal ones.

Collector Rayagada also expresed deep concern over the lack of sense responsibilty and mangerial abilities in some Pani panchayats, because of which many intitiatives which could have otherise changed the lot of the farmers, have failed. It has also hindered the growth of the farmer bodies into a formidable force, which can dictate terms in the market. This is precisely what distinguishes the model states, where the coopertaive movement has been taken in its right spirit and revolutionary changes have been seen in the farming communities.

There were some more important issues raised by the farmers such as govt of Orissa not allowing the cultivation of Bt cotton, to which the commission assured that the same will be allowed soon.

Last but not the least, the farmers' representative expressed their concerns over the non availability of farm labor in times of need, due to a rather benevolent scheme of the govt, NREGS and the Rs. 2 per Kg Rice scheme. Some of them also told that farm labour, if available, is a at a prohibitive cost of five times the wage that were paid earlier.

VISIT OF JUSTICE WADHAWA COMMISSION ON PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM TO RAYAGADA

Justice Wadhawa commission on Public distribution system visited Rayagada district today as an part of their visit to different districts of Orissa to see the ground realities and issues related with the Public Distribution System. The thrust of their visit in Rayagada was on the computerization of the PDS system, which was done as a part of the Biometric based Targeted PDS project which was launched last year in this district. Accordingly the Commission, consisting of former Supreme Court judge, Justice Wadhawa, Sri.Pushpendra Singh, IAS and three other members, accompanied by Sri. Madhusudan Padhi, IAS Commissioner-cum- secretary to govt, Food and civil supplies dept, had a review meeting with the district officials.



Dr. Nitin. B. Jawale, IAS Collector Rayagada gave a presentation on the present position of the Biometric based TPDS project. Till now 84% of the about 2.40 lakh families have be enrolled and 16 % are left out for various reasons. There have been nine thousand cases of wrong classification of which more than half have been corrected and cards are ready for distribution. Once this task is completed, the district administration will go for enrollment of the left out families






It is pertinent to mention here that more than 22 thousand bogus and ghost cards were eliminated by the software deduplication process and the district makes saving of more than 3 crores per year by the check on pilferage of essential commodities made possible by this project.
After the review meeting the commission visited two fair price shops in Rayagada Municipality area, where smart card operated Point of Sale device (POS) are installed. All the transactions in these devices are uploaded to the MIS server.
In the second half the team visited two rural fair price shops, one in Kumtilpetta and the other in Penta GP head quarters. In rural areas, GPs are the Fair price shops and instead of smart card operated POS devices, the system here is of bar coded cards and bar coded coupons. The bar coded coupons once used are collected by the marketing inspectors and centrally scanned at the district head quarters. After scanning the transaction details are uploaded to the server.
The commission members also appraised the district administration about similar projects in other parts of the country, particularly Gujarat.

PRESENTATION OF COLLECTOR RAYAGADA FOR WADHAWA COMMISION VISIT

FIELD UNIT OF RMRC IN RAYAGADA

Last year during the management of epidemic diarrhoea in Rayagada district, the district administration had mooted the proposal of setting up a field unit of Regional medical research centre (RMRC) in the district, so as to analyse the trend of outbreak and spread of diarrhoeal disease in the district and to formulate the plan of action based on such inputs.The response from the authorities was quick and as a result of which a field unit of RMRC has been set up in Rayagada, which was inaugurated on 06.09.11 by the Honourable Minister for Health and Family welfare, Govt of orissa, Sri. Prasanna Acharya in the District headquarters Hospital premises .

HONOURABLE MINISTER HEALTH & FW INAUGURATING THE FIELD UNIT OF RMRC


On this occasion were present, Sri. Lalbihari Himirika, Hoourable minister SC & ST development, Sri. Rammurti Mutika, MLA Gunupur, Sri. Arun Baroka, IAS Sr. DDG and Chief Vigilance officer ICMR, Sri. Dutta, Sr. DDG, ICMR, and other diginitaries.
The RMRC centre had already received more than 300 samples from different parts of south orissa. All the samples, except those from Gajapati district tested negative for vibrio cholerae. Sri. Shantanu Kar, Director RMRC and his colleagues, who have done extensive research in this field, explained in detail the functioning of the RMRC field unit in Rayagada to the dignitaries.

RMRC SCIENTISTS EXPLAINING THE SAMPLE TESTS


During the course of its trial runs the RMTC field unit could detect the presence of cholera organisms in the water samples and rectal swabs from the Mohona area of the neighbouring district of Gajapati district and the district administration was alerted in time and a possible outbreak was avoided not only in the district but also in the entire south Orissa. The prupose of setting up a field unit of RMRC was thus served and seen in the trial runs itself. As of now the RMRC field unit is run in a small room of the DHH, however the district administration has already selected an incomplete structure of the DHH to be used as a full fledged RMRC field centre, which can subsequently take up analysis of the culture and sensitivity for Malaria and MDR TB samples also.

POSITIVE SAMPLE FOR CHOLERA FROM MOHONA GAJAPATI DISTRICT


ANOTHER POSTIVE SAMPLE FOR CHOLERA

VISIT OF SRI PRIYABRATA PATNAIK, IAS TO RAYAGADA

JAYAKUMAR TAKES OVER AS GUNUPUR SUB COLLECTOR

V. Jayakumr today took over the charge of Sub Collector and sub divisional magistrate Gunupur in Rayagada district. Jayakumar has done his distric ttraining in Dhenkanal district. He was a part of the team of IAS probationers, who were depolyed in Rayagada district last year to assist the district administration in controlling the diarrhea epidemic out break and as a part of that team, Jayakumar had done a good job in the Kalyansinghpur block area.

DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION REPLIES TO PR DEPT ON CBI INQUIRY

CBI has been investigating in the NREGS irregularities for the year 2006-07 in 6 districts of Orissa and Rayagada was one of them. District administration Rayagada has right from the start extended fullest possible cooperation right from arrangement of their stay to providing the records for inquiry. The inquiry as such is of cases of the year 2006-07, which date back to five years. There were numerous records of those time which the CBI team asked for but were found missing. Of all these all records could be traced and rebuilt, except one. The case record which the district administration has not been able to trace out inspite of best efforts is of the "Phatamundi to Telingiri" work the year 2006-07 of the Pahadmunda village of Renga GP. It is pertinent to mention that the concerned PEO, Biswanath Nimalpuri, was caught by the district administration in 2010, after an inquiry and missappropriation to the tune of Rs. 50 lakh was unearthed. He was proceeded against and sent to jail subsequently. In the present case of missing record of the NREGS work, the same PEO is involved. BDO Kashipur has said that he had requested the SP vigilance to get it checked whether missing records were in his custody or sent to vigilance court, as all these cases were inquired upon by the state vigilance dept. However this particular record could not be traced there too. The district administration has taken all efforts to rebuild the case record, but without the availability of the manual muster roll of the original record, it is difficult to rebuild the record entirely. Collector Rayagada had instructed the BDO Kashipur to lodge an FIR with the condcerned Police Station and accordingly an FIR has been lodged ans State govt and CBI informed accordingly.

JAYAKUMAR TO JOIN AS SUB COLLECTOR GUNUPUR

V.Jayakumar, IAS 2009 batch is to soon take over as Sub Collector Gunupur. Gunupur has a long trtadition od direct recruit IAS Sub Collectors. The sub division consists of 7 blocks and is a almost of a size of any major district. it has 2 Police sub division sin it and consists of the most naxal affected and backward areas of Chandrapur and Gudari. Howevr Gunupur is also known for its enterprising people and is one of the major cotton growing areas of the state. Jayakumar suceeds M, Muthukumar IAS 2008 in the sub division.