B'lore: Awardees Mar Official Function at Raj Bhavan, Governor Cancels Speech

From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Jan 29: An official function held at Raj Bhavan, the official residence of Karnataka Governor  H R Bhardwaj, for presenting the prestigious Nirmala Grama Purasakar of the Union Rural Development Ministry to panchayat raj institutions for maintaining cleanliness in villages with latrine facility in every home was marred by slogan shouting by the awardees.

Taken aback by the brief commotion created by the awardees, who rushed to the podium in Raj Bhavan’s Glass House where the function was held demanding that they should have the privilege of getting photographed with the Governor along with Karnataka’s Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Jagadish Shettar, Bhardwaj cancelled his speech and the function had to be curtailed suddenly with the singing of the National Anthem to mark the conclusion.

However, but for the brief commotion and the cancellation of the formal speech by the Governor who obviously was irked by the slogan shouting, no untoward incidents took place. The minister and officials, including the Governor’s secretary, managed to pacify the agitated award winners and allowed their pictures to be taken along with Bhardwaj.

It may be recalled that the award presentation ceremony was normally being held in New Delhi and the President used to present the awards. However, the Union Government had decided to decentralise the award presentation to ensure that the awardees were honoured in their respective states.

The Raj Bhavan’s Glass House was packed with presidents and members of 245 village panchayats and three taluk panchayats, who had been chosen for this year’s awards, under the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission and the Karnataka State Water and Sanitation Mission.

With this, the total number of village panchayats in the state which got the award rose to 845 out of a total of 5,627 village panchayats in the state. Bantwal, Belthangadi and Puttur taluks of Dakshina Kannada district and Yellapur of Uttara Kannada district are among the award winning four taluks.

The Governor along with Shettar and the Economic Advisor to the Chief Minister K R Raju were presenting the awards, when some of the village panchayat presidents and members rushed to the podium demanding that they should be allowed to get their pictures taken with the Governor as a rememberance.

They were, reportedly, annoyed by the fact that the Governor was conferring the awards on a select few in view of the large number of awardees and the rest were asked to collect their awards from officials later.

The minister, who spoke earlier, pointed out that he would take up the issue of rewarding some of the village panchayats who may have been left out of consideration for the awards despite achieving total cleanliness due to various factors with the Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa.

``The Government is very keen to ensure that total clealiness is achieved in all villages in the State, with all the households having toilet facilities,’’ the minister said.

Shettar expressed happiness that as many as 22 lac families in the State have been convinced on the need to have toilets in their homes and pointed out that the Government was extending a subsidy of Rs 3,000 per family under the Nirmala Grama Scheme.

Another 33 lac families need to covered under the scheme, he said urging Stree Shakti Groups and other local leaders to prevail upon the people to ensure that more and more people availed the scheme. Funds under the National Employment Guarantee Scheme too can be utilised for the purpose, he said underscoring the need for cleanliness.

People of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Hassan, Kodagu and Bangalore districts had mostly developed the habit of using toilets and having toilets at home as part of maintaining personal hygiene and cleanliness,  the progress in Belgaum, Davangere, Dharwad and Koppal districts was satisfactory.

However, the districts of Bellary, Haveri, Bagalkot, Chitradurga, Bidar, Gadag, Mandya, Kolar, Chamarajangar, Tumkur, Raichur, Bijapurt and Gulbarga were at the bottom of the list.