Eluru District Collector Y Prasanna Venkatesh who won hearts of all

ELURU District Collector Y Prasanna Venkatesh has earned kudos from all sections in the district while discharging his duties at the same time without compromising on any issue during his time from January, 2022.

As an upright IAS officer he made his mark in the administration trying to solve people’s problems after receiving petitions from them. He is fondly called as people’s collector since he has been impartial while discharging the duty.

Whether it was general elections, or the trying time of floods to River Godavari, he had always been there to help people. He was instrumental in making the welfare schemes reached masses promptly. He introduced a new scheme to provide nutrition food to the Girijans in the agency area.

For instance, during the last thirty months, there were floods to River Godavari two times. Prasanna Venkatesh plunged forward to take spot decisions to shift several thousands of people to the rehabilitation centres.

With the cooperation of St Theresa College, Prasanna Venkatesh took initiative to provide nutrition food to the Girijan women andchildren in the ITDA mandals. As a result, 30 per cent of the women and children were relieved of anemia. He responded immediately whenever he received petitions from the poor and the aged and solved their problems.

It is apt to note here that his name was shortlisted two times for the PM Award for excellence in Public Administration.

Particularly, his efforts to utilise corporate social responsibility funds to provide various amenities like setting up five new libraries in the schools, constructing a lecture hall for the Kota Dibba Degree College, construction of district guest house, a gymnasium for the employees and a home for poor children and orphans. In particular, he encouraged childless parents to adopt orphans who lost their parents due to Covid.

Prasanna Venkatesh was instrumental in protecting Kolleru Lake from encroachments fighting tooth and nail against the land grabbers in Kaikaluru and Denduluru constituencies. He had also taken initiative to improve groundwater level across the district by encouraging Amrut Sarovar tanks and rain harvesting pits. He was also instrumental in the implementation of green field highway through National Highways Authority. Under his guidance, Eluru district stood first in the country in promoting ABHA health card and NCD-CD Survey introduced by Ayushman Bharat. Likewise, he had taken up construction of four fountains and greenery with the funds of Central Government’s NCAP scheme.

During the general elections, he had taken initiative to improve the voting percentage which had gone up to 84.9 which is higher than the previous elections.

Prasanna Venkatesh had taken initiative to weed out fake votes and provided voting right to every eligible person. He alerted his subordinates to undertake voter verification without any flaws. He had also taken initiative to identify the polling centres, allocation of staff and maintenance of EVMs to avoid problems.

The voting percentage had considerably increased due to his initiative due to his vision of providing voting right to the young voters. Likewise, postal ballot was also recorded the highest in the district. There has been unusual response for home voting in the district due to his initiative.