VMC meeting without result in Nizamabad

Nizamabad: The Vigilance Monitoring Committee (VMC) held its meeting in the town on Thursday without reviewing the progress of various schemes or without discussing steps to be taken during the coming summer to address drinking water problem. The meeting was held without any fruitful discussion on any important issue. Nizamabad MP Madhu Yashki and Zahirabad MP Suresh Shetkar were the chief guests at the meeting. District Collector Christina Z Chongthu, MLA Annapurnamma and MLC V Gangadhar Goud were present. However, MLAs Gampa Govardhan, Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, Yendala Laxminarayana and Hanmath Shinde, MLCs D Srinivas, Mohammed Ali Shabbir and Narsa Reddy and Government Whip Anil did not attend the meeting. The committee members have to review the progress of various schemes and question the officials about the funds spent on each scheme and they have to know the reasons for tardy progress in works. No such review was done at the meet. People of the district have been facing acute drinking water shortage for more than a month. Children and women have been trekking long distances to fetch water from agricultural wells and from ponds on the outskirts of villages. Several bore-wells have become defunct. The Rural Water Supply (RWS) officials have to make arrangements for the supply of water through tanks in summer. The available tanks were not cleaned up. Several hundreds of students have been facing acute water shortage at the hostels across the district. The patients at government hospitals are also facing severe water shortage. Several thousands of farmers have been facing hardships due to non-availability of water for irrigation. The coming months would bring more problems to farmers. The people's representatives did not raise all these problems at the meeting. The officials of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) have to prepare proposals of works to be taken up under the scheme during the summer. But the officials have not yet prepared any proposals for taking up works and the members of the committee have failed to raise the issue. Only as a formality, MP Madhu Yashki expressed his unhappiness over the RWS official Indrasena Reddy stating that the official had failed to prepare proposals of works effectively. On the whole, the meeting was held as a mere ritual.