CS Dinesh Kumar Speech at Collectors Conference

On the first day of the Collectors’ Conference, Chief Secretary Dinesh Kumar briefed the Chief Minister on consolidated performance and achievements of the state across various departments.

The Chief Secretary mentioned that significant progress has been made in the area of rural infrastructure with the government having achieved 100% LPG connections for all eligible households along with 100% electrification. Additionally, 80% Open Defecation Free(ODF) status has been achieved in the rural areas.

Speaking on health and nutrition in specific tribal areas, Dinesh Kumar said, “There is a need for special focus on the ST population across 30 mandals. These mandals constitute of 42 % of state’s ST population.”

The percentage of severely underweight children in these ST dominated mandals is 4.2% which is more than twice that of state’s average of 2%.

The Chief Minister was also informed that Kurnool has the highest percentage of underweight children in the state with 21% of state’s underweight children present in Kurnool district.

“A consolidated effort along with targeted action needs to be taken. The district collectors need to collaborate with the other local authorities to address the issue of malnutrition, low infant mortality and other such health issues. Not just health and nutrition, a similar approach is needed in the areas of public distribution system, scholarships, education, poverty, malnutrition, garbage collection, ODF plus road connectivity, agriculture and other key areas. We need to make sure that the public satisfaction is the highest here”, said the Chief Minister.

Department of Health, Medical & Family Welfare

Briefing the Chief Minister on the progress of the department, Poonam Malakondaiah, Principal Secretary, Health and Nutrition informed that overall core health indicators and social health indicators across the 13 districts have seen improvement with a growth of 3.05% in fourth quarter of 2017-18 from the previous quarter.

The maternal and infant mortality rates were also presented as an area of concern with East Godavari followed by Kadapa and Ananthapur leading in maternal mortality. Ananthapur followed by Guntur and Kurnool were the leading districts in Infant mortality rates.

The Chief Minister was also presented with an action plan where each of the district collectors was entrusted to identify 40,000 square feet of land to set up District Cancer hospitals by NTR trust.

In a bid to counter malaria, the health department officials informed the Chief Minister that key blocks have been identified and hot spots are being created to counter it. East Godavari and Vizianagaram were the top districts affected by malaria in 2017.

Officials from Department of Women, Children, Differently abled, Transgender and Senior Citizen informed the Chief Minister that 6,500 transgenders have registered with the department and medical certificates were issued to 525 transgenders as of date and the others are in the process.

Under the action plan for nutrition program for pregnant woman, lactating women and children upto 6 years, there were 29,46,137 beneficiaries with Kurnool standing first with 3.09 lakh beneficiaries followed by East Godavari at 3.07 lakh and Ananthapur at 2.86 lakh.

On the senior citizen welfare front, the Government has issued orders for establishment of old age homes with a capacity of housing 100 senior citizen on a public private partnership mode on Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Ananthapur.