Kanti Velugu: Telangana eyes Guinness World Record

Health Minister Harish Rao says 960 doctors will be recruited in the State within one week.

Jagtial: Health and Finance Minister T Harish Rao wants the State government’s prestigious programme Kanti Velugu to enter in the Guinness Book of World Records. Everybody including officials of all departments and public representatives should work hard to achieve the record, he said.

Talking about scarcity of doctors for successful implementation of Kanti Velugu, Harish Rao made it clear that there was no shortfall of doctors since they are going to recruit 960 doctors within one week.

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Minister, who was here to examine arrangements for the Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao tour scheduled in Jagital on Wednesday, conducted a review meeting on Kanti Velugu with Collectors and other officials of all districts through video conference from here on Tuesday.

Speaking on the occasion, he instructed officials to take all steps to make the second phase of Kanti Velugu programme a grand success and wanted the officials of all departments to actively participate in the programme, which was aimed for the benefit of the poor.

Advising officials to go ahead with the cooperation of public representatives, the Minister wanted involvement of MPs, MLAs, MLCs and representatives of local bodies in the programme.
Informing that the first phase of Kanti Velugu continued for eight months, he said that the second phase has to be completed in hundred working days. For this purpose, the number of testing teams have also been enhanced to 1,500 from 827. All people would be provided glasses free of cost by conducting eye tests across the state. 30 lakh reading and 25 lakh prescription glasses would be supplied, he informed and instructed officials to complete the processes of shifting the glasses to districts before starting of the programme.

The distribution of prescription glasses should be completed within one month of eye testing, he directed and added that the government was ready to provide everything but emphasised that officials should work with commitment to make the schemes successful. The Minister advised the health staff to make arrangements without disturbing the regular health services. Collectors, district medical and health officers and officials of other departments should coordinate with each other and ensure that the programme becomes a grand .

He advised medical and health department officials to prepare plans by discussing with Municipal and Panchayat Raj departments. Emphasizing the need for publicity about the programme in village, mandal and district levels, he wanted the officials to discuss about Kanti Velugu scheme in mandal parishad, zilla parishad and municipal meetings. After completion of district micro planning, district in-charge Ministers should conduct meetings with district public representatives and finalize dates to conduct eye testing camps in their respective district.

Instructing officials to keep ready five percent buffer teams (advance teams) to avoid shortfall of staff, he wanted the authorities to make special arrangements for women staff. Besides ten state-level quality control teams, district level quality control teams would also be formed in every district to check quality of eye testing. Special arrangements would also be made to conduct tests for the people, who failed to attend camps, he said.

While Medical and Health Chief Secretary Rizvi participated in the review from Hyderabad, Commissioner Swetha, Public Health Director Srinivas, and Additional Collector Manda Makarand participated from Jagtial.