Lokayukta visit after 9 yrs of complaint

After nine years of filing a complaint with the Lokayukta on failure of the authorities concerned to provide electricity to Hodakana, near here, the officials visited the village on Friday.

The complaint was filed with the Lokayukta on October 29, 2004 by Kalachanda Ravi Thammaiah. He said, “The Centre and the State governments had chalked out several programmes to supply electricity to tribals. Unfortunately, the authorities concerned have failed to supply electricity to Mukkodlu, Avandi and Desthur villages also. There is a need to probe into it”.

A team, led by investigating officer B Prasanna Kumar, visited the spot on Friday. “How can we provide relevant documents if the officials come after nine years of filing the complaint. A majority of the tribals in the village are uneducated and they do not have knowledge that they should preserve the documents,” said Thammaiah.

“The government has been spending crores of rupees to provide basic facilities to villages. Will the officials not know that the welfare programmes have not been implemented by looking at the condition of the villagers? The materials meant for supplying electricity went missing from the godown. It is obvious from an inspection of the godown,” he said.

However, Prasanna Kumar asked the villagers to produce documents to establish that materials went missing from the godown. “Without documents, we cannot act. If you get the documents, send them to me or to Cesc engineer within a week,” he said.