Integrated Tribal Development Agency(ITDA) Project Officer Venkateswar Salijamula has described working in the tribal areas as a boon. Dr. Venkateswar was felicitated by officials and staff at a farewell organised at the ITDA office at Paderu on Monday on his transfer to Chittoor as Joint Collector (Housing).
Responding to the felicitations, Dr. Venkateswar said that the works on provision of amenities like roads, drinking water, development of coffee plantations and improvement of basic infrastructure at hospitals gave him the maximum satisfaction. He said that the tribal area of Visakhapatnam was bigger than the State of Sikkim. He recalled having taken the advice of senior IAS officers like Somesh Kumar, Sai Prasad, District Collector V. Vinay Chand, who had all worked in the Agency area, apart from taking the guidance of D.K. Balaji.
He explained that he had visited 210 panchayats in the 11 Agency mandals and initiated the construction of roads and provision of drinking water. He would forever cherish the distribution of RoFR pattas to the tribal people. A total of 86,000 acres of land was distributed to 55,000 beneficiaries, which was the highest in the tribal areas of the State.
A total of 300 km of roads were constructed in the Agency in one year. He appreciated the dedication of Executive Engineer (Tribal Welfare) K.V.S.N. Kumar. He appreciated the services of the medical officers and healthcare workers in the Agency areas and said that the prevalence of malaria has declined by 55% compared to last year. He appreciated the police for their cooperation in the successful conduct of elections in the Agency areas. Later, he launched the work on modernisation of the ITDA office building.
RDO K. Lakshmi Siva Jyothi, ITDA APO S. Prabhakar, Deputy Director (Tribal Welfare) G. Vijay Kumar, Superintending Engineer Srinivas, Panchayat Raj EEs Srinivasa Rao and Lavanya Kumar were among those who attended.
