Hyderabad: Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has announced the release of Rs 60 crore from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF) to meet the emergency needs of the BC, SC, ST and minority welfare hostels across the state. The funds are going to be used towards diet charges in the hostels, release of temporary staff salaries, motor repairs, and emergency works in the residential hostels. At a high-level review of all welfare departments on Monday, the Chief Minister handed over the cheques for Rs 60 crore to the senior officers of the respective departments. The Chief Minister ordered the authorities to arrange for using facial recognition technology to keep tabs on the students, teaching and non-teaching staff staying in every hostel.

An official app would be developed to help monitor the quality of food provided to students regularly. Additional measures will be taken to ensure that students get quality and nutritious food with proper nutrients, while measuring the calories they get in their regular diet.

Special attention would be paid to the health of the students in the hostels. A network will be developed among hostels as well as government and private medical colleges, community health centers, and area hospitals in every district. With the help of the network, the state government will organize medical camps in the hostels and make available doctors during emergencies. A hotline would also be set up for doctors to attend to medical emergencies in the hostels.

To streamline the administrative system and run the hostels efficiently, Revanth Reddy ordered Chief Secretary K Ramakrishna Rao and Special Chief Secretary to Welfare Departments Sabyasachi Ghosh to submit an action plan regarding scholarships, staff salaries.

He also asked them to submit the plans on diet charges, construction costs, other expenses, payment of dues, monthly expenses for running the hostels, and the amount required for payment of dues of BC, SC, ST and minority hostels. The authorities were ordered to also mobilize funds from centrally sponsored schemes for the hostels and release matching grants of the state government immediately.