Visakhapatnam: Making 'Spandana' more accessible to rural people

Visakhapatnam: In a step to make the weekly 'Spandana' programme a successful endeavour, District Collector A Mallikarjuna decided to bring it closer to people, rural petitioners in particular.

In line with this, the programme held on Mondays at Collectorate was shifted to Narsipatnam Sub Collector office for the first time.

Submitting grievances for those residing in rural and Agency areas is a time-consuming exercise which also includes a good stretch of travelling.

Despite the travel, petitioners need to wait for long hours at the Collector office to get their turn.

Considering the expenditure, time and distance involved, many try to skip submitting their grievances to the authorities.

To fill this gap, the District Collector decided to conduct Spandana programme in rural divisions.

As a part of it, Narsipatnam division turned out to be the venue on Monday. However, this is just the beginning. "In future, we are planning to cover all the divisions so that more people can access the platform," Mallikarjuna said.

Apparently, an overwhelming response was received for the programme held at Narsipatnam. Close to 695 petitions were received on Monday for the Spandana held in the division.

The officials concerned were directed to sort out the issues of the petitioners in a time-bound manner. In connection with this, the District Collector stressed on setting a deadline to address the grievances by 25th of this month.

Interacting with the petitioners, the District Collector assured them that their grievances will be looked into at the earliest.