ANANTAPUR: While people often protest by staging dharnas and blocking roads, the villagers of Pulletipalli in Anantapur district’s CK Palli mandal have chosen a different route. They stopped taking ration from the government through the PDS system, to demand that a village secretariat be set up in their locality, which is the panchayat headquarters.
“The administration set up the village secretariat in a hamlet rather than at the headquarters. From next month, we will stop taking pension and all other benefits as well if the village secretariat is not set up at the headquarters,” the villagers said.
Pulletipalli, as the panchayat headquarters, has the villages of Kotampalli, Pylaboyalapalle and Venkatampalle under its purview. As per government norms, the village secretariat — which is intended to deliver government services — was to be set up at Pulletipalli. However, it was set up in Venkatampalle. The residents of Pulletipalli say this was done under political pressure.
“No household here voluntarily took ration in November. We also did not deposit the Demand Draft that needs to be submitted to the department concerned to get the ration for December,” said Nagendra Reddy, a resident of Pulletipalli, who is the village ration dealer.
He added that the villagers decided not to collect their social security pension in December. Another villager, Adisesha Reddy, wondered how the administration decided to construct the village secretariat at a hamlet rather than at the headquarters. “Three villages are under the purview of the panchayat and our village is the headquarters. Ideally, the village secretariat should come up her,” he said.
Srinivas Reddy, another villager, added that they took up the issue with the district administration during the November 9 Spandana programme but got no response. “Earlier, we approached local officials, including the tahsildar, MPDO, zilla parishad chief executive officer and others, but got no response. Even in the mandal village secretariat list, the location of the village secretariat is shown as Pulletipalli,” he said, adding that the villagers decided to boycott all government schemes until their demand is met. When contacted, Dharmavaram Revenue Divisional Officer Madhusudhan said he was not aware of the issue. “I will collect details and take it up with higher officials,” he told TNIE.