Anantapur: Village volunteers told to stop biased attitude

Anantapur- Puttaparthi: The village volunteers appointed by the government to act as a bridge between the government and people is under severe criticism for their biased attitude towards the ruling party. They are being accused of bias towards the TDP sympathisers in villages and are said to be acting under pressure of people's representatives.

The original concept of the chief minister aimed at triggering gram swaraj and bringing administration and government services to the doorstep is now under severe criticism due to YSRCP leaders at the mandal and Panchayath level in several parts of the districts calling the shots and applying pressure on village volunteers and secretariat staff to ignore

TDP voters and keep them outside the ambit of welfare schemes just to settle local political scores with them. Village volunteers have emerged as crucial for the Jagan Mohan Reddy government as they are acting as a bridge between the government, people and the YSRCP. One Krishna Reddy in Puttaparthi rural told The Hans India that his family is denied benefit under housing scheme. Not only some who are identified as TDP voters are meted out the same treatment.

The chief minister's promise that all eligible will be covered under welfare irrespective of political affiliations, on a saturation mode but at the ground level the thinking of lower level leaders seemed to be different. They are settling local political scores using the weapon of welfare, he bemoaned. Lakshmi Naidu, a volunteer in rural Anantapur mandal, who resigned her job told The Hans India that work pressure and political pressure to do injustice to the ruling party rivals prompted her to quit her job. If this attitude continued, the much-promised gram swaraj will be a fiction, she maintained.

Many victims of discrimination in rural areas, are waiting for the chief minister 'Racha Banda' programme to complain of village politics that are diluting the village secretariats and volunteers' system. Several NGO functionaries who refused to be quoted, stated their interactions with people in rural areas confirmed the political stress the scheme is under. These social functionaries feel that the functioning of village volunteers should be under scrutiny. They should be ensured that the spirit of the scheme be executed and dabbling in politics should be stopped.

Many volunteers are under cloud and are accused of corruption. Some Volunteers are allegedly collecting bribes for the services given by them. Many villagers, who are traditionally TDP supporters, feel that the local YSRCP leaders are discriminating between YSRCP and TDP voters. The ruling party MLAs and even the district collector Nagalakshmi Selvarajan too are frequently going for surprise inspections of village secretariats.

But this is not enough, an exclusive camp of victims of discrimination should be organised by the district collectors concerned and an on the spot redressal of people's grievances should be done. Unless a serious effort is put in by all stakeholders, many surprises are in store for the government, political observers say. ZP CEO Bhaskar Reddy told The Hans India that the functioning of secretariats and volunteers will be improved and that the ZP officials would apply their mind on the subject.

The MPDOs will be made responsible for the effective functioning of secretariats. There are 900 plus village secretariats and 15,995 village volunteers in the district.