Union Minister vows all support to ADP districts

Visakhapatnam: Unionminister of state (Independent Charge) for planning Rao Inderjit Singh assured support from the Central government for the Aspirational District Programme (ADP).

At a review meeting held at Visakhapatnam Collectorate on Friday, the Union minister exhorted the authorities concerned to submit a report of ADP for the districts and it would be brought to the notice of the Centre. “Assistance would be given to release funds through various schemes to the districts,” he promised.

District collectors of Alluri Sitarama Raju district AS Dinesh Kumar and Parvathipuram Manyam A Shyam Prasad gave presentations on health and nutrition, education, agriculture and water resources, economic development activities in their districts.

They highlighted the progress made in both the districts through a PowerPoint presentation on the occasion. The collectors brought fund crunch faced in respective districts to the notice of the Union minister. “ASR district should be transformed into a hub for organic products and produce. A brand should be created for them to market the products,” Dinesh Kumar suggested.

Along with curriculum based academic lessons, students of government schools in the districts were trained in extra-curricular activities, the ASR district collector said.

Later, he appealed to the Union minister to take up repair works of existing check dams and constructing new ones for irrigation purposes.

Sharing his views, Shyam Prasad informed that Parvathipuram Manyam has been lagging behind in industrial growth. Except micro industries, the district is deprived of medium and big industries, the collector briefed to the Union minister. “In order to overcome it, opportunities in increasing technical education should be considered by the institutions. Also, the district has only 15-km of national highway and if state roads get converted into national highways, growth in the district will be witnessed,” the district collector stressed.

In addition, Shyam Prasad requested the Union minister to allocate funds for the facilitation of a multi-purpose sports complex and development of tourism.

Further, Inderjit Singh took details of the infrastructure development made in education, health and agriculture sectors.

Later, the minister visited Araku Coffee stall wherein efforts made to market the brand was explained to him in detail.

MLAs B Vijaya Chandra and N Jaya Krishna, ITDA POs K Simhachalam, Apoorva Bharat, among others, were present.