Administration goes haywire without sarpanches

VIJAYAWADA: Villages in the state have, for the first time, come under the rule of special officers with the sarpanches' fiveyear term coming to an end on August 22 this year.
Andhra Pradesh Sarpanches Association president and MLC YB Rajendraprasad says there are 21,936 grama panchayats in 1,096 mandals in the state and about 70 per cent of the state's population lives in rural areas.Despite their opposition, Rajendraprasad says, the state government appointed special officers like MROs, MEOs, MDOs and mandallevel agricultural officers and others to oversee five or six villages each. As these officers have no understanding of local issues, the villages have been deprived of better sanitation, drinking water and other basic amenities in these two and a half months. The growing number of malariaal and dengue cases in rural areas during the season is a pointer to lack of administration in grama panchayats.