Hyderabad: Perform or face fund cut

Hyderabad: If your district does not get funds blame it on your District Collector! It means that the government is not satisfied with his or her performance.

After introducing the new administrative system and creation of two additional collectors to look after the local bodies and to generate revenue for the developmental works in the district, the government has now put the onus on the District Collectors to ensure implementation of various activities like infrastructural development, including education, health, housing, sanitation, roads, etc. Even the release of constituency development fund to all MLAs and MLCs will be decided based on the performance of the District Collectors.

"Earlier, the state government used to release funds based on the reports submitted by the Planning department and Secretaries based on the feedback from the surveys and studies.

In many instances, funds were being released on the request of the local MLAs and other influential people's representatives," sources said

Under the new system, Collectors have been given complete freedom to prepare the blueprint for the development of the district.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao told all the Collectors to prepare action plans and get funds liberally. The more they perform the more funds their districts will get. But then there is a hitch here.

According to officials, getting approval of the government for

projects and schemes submitted by the Collectors could be a challenging task.

However, they hope that since the Collectors now will have direct access to Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and Secretaries of all departments, they may get speedy clearances for the district-specific schemes.