Procure Vegetables For Schools From Vantimamidi: KCR

On the directions of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar conducted a virtual conference with the all the district Collectors of the state, four Welfare Secretaries and the secretaries of several residential schools regarding the supply of high quality vegetables to the institutions in time for the February 1 reopening of the same.

At the conference, the Chief Secretary directed the officials to examine the possibility of buying vegetables from the Vantimamidi vegetable market for the residential schools and colleges, and hostels across the state, for mid-day meals in schools and for students of resedential institutions.

The officials were also directed to prepare an action plan for the supply of the vegetables.

"Procuring vegetables from Vantimamidi will help the educational institutions get quality vegetable at competitive prices, and will also benefit the vegetable farmers boost their sales. Please look into procuring vegetables from the mandi, and prepare plan for the procurement," Kumar told the Collectors.

The Welfare Secretaries were directed to involve the local youth in the procurement process, and to provide subsidised transportation facilities for the same to those sellers eligible for the same.

Besides this, the Collectors were instructed to ensure that all the educational institutions get fully ready for the scheduled reopening, and were asked to carry out regular surprise inspections of the institutions to ensure that they were complying with the Covid-19 safety guidelines.

Apart from the Welfare Secretaries and the district Collectors, Secretary (BC Welfare) B Venkatesham, Secretary (PR & RD) Sandeep Kumar Sultania, Secretary (Minority Welfare) Ahmed Nadeem, Secretary (Scheduled Caste Development Department) Rahul Bojja, Secretary (Tribal Welfare) Christina Z Chongthu, Special Secretary (Welfare of Women & Children) D Divya, Secretary (Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society) R S Praveen Kumar, Secretary (Telangana Minorities Residential Educational Institutions Society) B Shafiulla, and Director of Marketing G Laxmi Bai were also present at the meeting.

Before issuing the aforementioned directives to Kumar to the Chief Secretary, the CM had reportedly paid a surprise visit to the Vantimamidi vegetable market, and had interacted with the farmers present there to get first-hand insight into their issues.

During his visit, the CM reportedly also instructed the concerned officials to ensure that the farmers not be charged more than 4% commission on their sales.

When he was informed that 16 of the 107 shops in the vegetable mandi were still vacant, KCR asked the officials to place the vacant shops under government control and use them to procure vegetables from farmers for the government schools, hostels and residential schools in Siddipet district and other parts of the state.