FIRST :
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy faced a near-disaster situation three years ago while flying in a private helicopter from Prakasam district to Hyderabad.
In 2006, Dr. Reddy, accompanied by his Special Secretary M.G.V.K. and Chief Security Officer M. Ramesh Kumar, was returning to the city after a visit to Giddalur.
While flying over Srisailam, where the massive hydro-electric project by the same name is located, the helicopter, owned by Deccan Airways, was caught in bad weather. Incessant rain and dense clouds forced the pilot to look for a safe landing place. The Air Traffic Control in Hyderabad asked the pilot to fly low so that the Chief Security Officer could establish contact with officials on the ground with his communication equipment. After surveying maps he was carrying, the Chief Security Officer found that Jadcherla was the nearest place for the helicopter to land.
As the chopper was flying low, the Mahabubnagar Collector and the Superintendent of Police were informed. As the district administration had just 30 minutes to make arrangements, the officials provided security around the playground of a government high school where the helicopter landed safely.
FATE
Hyderabad’s Begumpet airport, gets ready to board the helicopter on Wednesday morning.
Andhra Pradesh was plunged into a crisis after Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who completed just 110 days in office in his second term, went missing along with two key aides and pilots in a helicopter somewhere in the vicinity of the dense Nallamala forest on Wednesday morning.
A sombre and uncertain mood prevailed among leaders across the political spectrum as search operations launched on an unprecedented scale by land and air through the day failed to yield any results as the missing Bell-430 helicopter could not be located since it lost contact with air traffic control authorities at 9.35 a.m.
The Chief Minister was on his way from Begumpet airport in Hyderabad to Anuppalle village in Chittoor district to take part in a mass contact programme with rural folk. The journey, that was expected to last two hours and 20 minutes, was feared to have ended soon after the chopper was sighted by villagers between Atmakur and Bandi Atmakur in Kurnool district, mid-way from Hyderabad to Chittoor.
Dismay and disbelief
There was a sense of utter dismay and disbelief among people, who held special prayers in temples, as the updates given by Finance Minister K. Rosaiah and Chief Secretary P. Ramakanth Reddy only reflected the gravity of the situation and held out little hope that the Chief Minister’s helicopter could be traced early.
The State administration went into high gear by pressing into service at least seven aircraft for the search operations, including five helicopters of the Indian Air Force from Hakimpet and Yelahanka; three private choppers; another one belonging to the State government, and two fixed-wing aircraft. Thousands of policemen fanned out into the forest area, which until recently was a hideout for Maoists.
Mr. Ramakanth Reddy said the Union government had been requested to seek the help of the U.S. Defence Department to secure satellite imagery to locate the ill-fated chopper. An aircraft of the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), capable of flying at altitudes as low as 1.25 km and covering 250 sq km even in inclement weather, was flying over the areas where the chopper is feared to have made an emergency landing. However, the search operations were hampered by incessant rain and cloud cover, which forced two IAF copters sent from Hakimpet to return to the base within no time. “There is still no clue about the missing Bell-430 chopper. But the call of my conscience says Dr. Reddy will return safely,” Mr. Rosaiah said.
In the helicopter along with the Chief Minister was his Special Secretary P. Subramanyam, an IAS officer, and Chief Security Officer A.S.C. Weseley. Between them, they were carrying four mobile phones, including one belonging to the Chief Minister. But it is unlikely that they were of any use since there were no signals in the area. The helicopter was piloted by Group Captain S.K. Bhatia and Capt. M. S. Reddy, both highly experienced and fully qualified.
Airworthy?
Seeking to dispel fears that the Bell-430 helicopter was not fully airworthy, the A. P. Avaition Corporation, which operates the chopper, said that it was issued the Certificate of Airworthiness by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation, Hyderabad, and that the certificate was valid up to December 2010.
The Corporation added that the helicopter was equipped with an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) capable of automatic transmission of radio signals. This would have been activated in case of any crash or crash-landing but no such signal was picked by the Dornier 228 aircraft launched from the IAF base at Yelahanka.
President Pratibha Patil, now in Moscow, enquired from the Chief Secretary about the safety of Dr. Reddy, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who were regularly monitoring the situation from New Delhi, spoke to Dr. Reddy’s wife, Vijayalakshmi Reddy, and his son, Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy. Ms. Sonia Gandhi is expected to arrive in Hyderabad on Thursday to take stock of the situation.
END OF MODERN DAY ROBIN HOOD
Death was possibly instantaneous for Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and four others, when their helicopter crashed into Pavurala Gutta, a steep hillock between Atmakur and Rollapenta villages of Kurnool district.
The chopper, which had veered 18 km off the set flight path possibly due to low visibility conditions, crashed into the hillock and burst into flames. “There was a black [burnt] patch spread over nearly 25 to 30 sq m, indicating that the chopper had exploded on impact,” said an officer who monitored the search operations from here.
The helicopter was carrying enough fuel to fly for two more hours. When it took off from the Begumpet airport in normal weather conditions on Wednesday morning, the Bell-430 had fuel adequate for three hours of ‘endurance’. The flight time to reach the destination, Anuppalle village in Chittoor district, was two hours and 20 minutes. It flew for nearly one hour.
The search operations resumed by Thursday morning. The IAF choppers pinpointed the ‘latlong’ coordinates of the crash site by about 8 a.m. The information was communicated to the base station set up in Kurnool, which in turn alerted the Greyhounds control centre here.
Within minutes another IAF chopper scrambled from Kurnool with Greyhounds commandos. By then the control here had alerted the commando units which were scouring the core area to reach the crash site.
There were nearly 20 units (each with 30 members) moving on either side of the Atmakur-Rollapenta road stretch at the northern tip of Kurnool district. Geographically, the borders of Prakasam district begin after Rollapenta on the southern side. Further north is Srisailam, which houses the holy Saivite temple. After this point starts Mahabubnagar district on the north. Down south, the Nandyal Reserve Forest area begins after about 6 km of plain terrain.
Informed sources said there were eight commando units on the northern side while eight were on the southern side of the Atmakur-Rollapenta road stretch. The other four units were at a distance of 7 km from the crash site. These four units were given the ‘grid reference’ and told to move to the site with the aid of GPS handheld devices. The terrain was extremely difficult, but identifying the target area was easier as IAF choppers were hovering over the crash site.
HIS PROJECTS FOR Below Poverty Line families
Aarogyasri Health Care Trust
Rural population of state, majority of whom are farmers, are not having access to advanced medical treatments and are silent sufferers of ill health. This is more true in case of diseases related to heart, kidney, brain, cancer and injuries due to domestic accidents and burns. While the Government is in the process of adequately strengthening the health institutions for basic health care, lack of specialist doctors and equipments for treatment of serious diseases has created a wide gap between the disease load and the capacity of the Government hospitals to serve the poor. These facilities though available in corporate sector are catering mainly to the affordable sections of society and are beyond the reach of poor families living in villages. Because of this gap poor patients are constrained to go to private hospitals for treatment and in the process incur huge debts leading to sale of properties and assets or are, sometimes, left eventually to die.
Keeping above scenario in the mind, the government in an effort to assist the Below Poverty Line families (BPL) has decided to introduce health insurance for treating the dreaded diseases. In order to facilitate the effective implementation of the scheme, the Government has set up AAROGYASRI HEALTH CARE TRUST under the chairmanship of Hon'ble Chief Minister. The trust in consultation with the specialists in the field of insurance and medical professionals has devised a tailor made insurance scheme - The Rajiv Aarogyasri Community Health Insurance Scheme.
Aarogyasri-II
Rajiv Aarogyasri Community Health Insurance Scheme(Aarogyasri II)
Encouraged by the success of the ongoing scheme, Government have now decided to launch with effect from 17th July, 2008, the Aarogyasri-II scheme to include a large number of additional surgical and medical diseases to enable many more BPL people who are now suffering from acute ailments, to lead a healthy life.
Aarogyasri-II scheme is an extension of the ongoing Health Insurance Scheme. The front end of the ongoing scheme viz., network hospitals, Aarogyamithras, Health Cards etc., will remain the same. Only difference would be that the pre-authorization and claim processing for the new diseases would be done by the Trust directly and funded from the C.M. relief fund.
30 groups of eminent doctors from the Government and corporate hospital sectors have through a series of discussions and in consultation with the managements of corporate hospitals finalized a list of 389 surgical and 144 medical diseases and also evolved package rates for its cashless treatment.
With the launch of Aarogyasri-II, cashless treatment of BPL population for all major diseases will become possible in Government / corporate hospitals. Diseases covered under ongoing Aarogyasri - I and those proposed to be covered under Aarogyasri-II are complimentary to the facilities available in Government hospitals and put together substantially meet the medical requirement of general population. The diseases specifically excluded from the list are:
a. High end diseases such as 'hip and knee replacement, bone morrow, cardiac and liver transplantation, gamma-knife procedures in neuro surgery, assisted devices for cardiac failures etc;
b. Diseases covered by National Programmes viz., TB, HIV / AIDS, Leprosy, infectious diseases, Malaria, Filaria, Gastroenteritis, Jaundice etc.
To the extent the scope of Aarogyasri- I is enlarged by Aarogyasri-II , it would no longer be permissible for the BPL population to approach the Government for providing relief for medical purposes from the CMRF.
INDIRAMMA(Integrated Novel Development in Rural Areas and Model Municipal Areas)
Hon. Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy launched the historic INDIRAMMA programme to create a novel rural/urban Andhra Pradesh through development of villages and municipalities in an integrated manner.
Government has been implementing many programmes over the years for development of infrastructure and on individual welfare. Since there is always a universal aspiration of all the people to be part of this developmental process, the impact of the programmes implemented so far is not quite visible due to the scattered nature of the distribution of the resources. As of now, there is hardly any objective, equitable and verifiable criteria in selection of towns and villages while implementing the programmes. An ad-hoc allocation of money for various programmes has come into vogue instead of using village as a unit for integrated planning. Even while sanctioning programmes and welfare measures all the genuine requirements of the villages/towns are not being considered, resulting in avoidable dissatisfaction among the public. Thus the approach is open ended and not focused.
Keeping the above in view, Andhra Pradesh Government has taken a decision to take up development of model villages and towns with an intention to saturate certain identified basic needs of the people and the village/town Infrastructure In an integrated and focused manner.This is planned to be achieved in a period of three years.
This new model of development is named as "INDIRAMMA" (Integrated Novel Development in Rural Areas & Model Municipal Areas) to fulfill the dreams of our former Prime Minister, Smt, Indira Gandhi. The objective of this programme is to saturate the basic needs in respect of the identified activities in all the Villages and Towns over a period of Three years. Such development model will ensure overall development of the Villages/Towns in a transparent manner covering additional areas every year. This process will remove the uncertainty and skepticism in certain quarters with regard to coverage of all eligible beneficiaries and the infrastructure needs since all the villages/towns are covered over a period of three years.
The primary aim of this programme is to provide in every village pucca houses, drinking water supply, individual sanitary latrines, drainage, power supply to every household, Road facilities for transport, pensions to eligible old age persons, weavers, widows and the disabled, primary education to all, special nutrition to adolescent girls/pregnant and lactating women and better health facilities in all the villages over a period of three years in a saturation mode, This shall improve the living standards of the people significantly.
This programme will be taken up in all the mandals simultaneously. Taking up Gram Panchayats covering one third of the population in the mandal every year, all the Gram Panchayats will be covered over a period of three years. 8026 Gram Panchayats have been selected for the first phase of the programme starting on 1st April 2006 and the remaining Gram Panchayats will be covered during subsequent two years. Government is ready to launch the programme from 1st April 2006 and Gram Sabhas will be held in the selected Gram Panchayats from 6th February 2006 to give details of the specific activities to be taken up in the village under the programme.
DR YSR GARU IS KNOWN AS MODERN DAY COTTON DORA. SOME DETAILS ABOUT COTTON DORA
SIR ARTHUR COTTON (COTTON DORA GARU)
Arthur Cotton was born on 15th May 1803 as tenth son to Mr. and Mrs. Henry Calvely Cotton. He was one of eleven brothers, who lived honorable lives through all the vicissitudes of their different careers. At the age of 15 i.e., in 1818 Cotton joined as a cadet for Military at Addiscombe where cadets for Artillery and Engineering Service of East Indian Company received training. He was appointed to the Royal Engineers as Second Lieutenant in the year 1819. Lieutenant Cotton started his career with ordinance survey in Wales in January 1820 where he received a high praises for his admirable reports.
When he was 18 (i.e., 1821) he was appointed for service in India and attached to the Chief Engineer to Madras initially and later appointed as an Assistant Engineer to Superintending Engineer of Tank Department, Southern Division from 1822 to 1824. Cotton spent partly in the Irrigation Tank Department and partly in Military duties in Burma.
After return from Burma, Cotton has conducted marine survey of Pamban passage between India and Ceylon. Cotton was promoted to the rank of "Captain" in the year 1828 and was incharge of Investigation for Cauveri Scheme. The Cauveri Anicut was successful and paved the way for great projects on Godavari and Krishna Rivers. In the year 1844 Cotton recommended the construction of "Anicut" with Channels, Embankments, and roads of Godavari Delta, prepared plans for Visakhapatnam port. In the Year 1847 the work on Godavari Anicut was started.
In the Year 1848 he proceeded to Australia due to ill health and handed over the charge to Captain Orr. In the year 1850 returned to India and promoted as Colonel. Cotton made best use of local materials, that he had in the shape of Hydraulic lime, good stone, and excellent teak available in the neighborhood. He succeeded in completing the magnificent project on Godavari river at Dowleswaram in the year 1852. In the same year work on Gannavaram Aqueduct was also commenced.
After completing the Godavari Anicut Cotton shifted his attention to the construction of Aqueduct on Krishna River. The project was sanctioned in the year 1851 and completed by 1855. After completing the Krishna and Godavari Anicuts, Cotton envisaged of storages of Krishna and Godavari rivers. In the year 1858 Cotton came up with still more ambitious proposals connecting almost all major rivers of India and suggested drought relief measures in Orissa and interlinking of canals and rivers.
Arthur Cotton was retired from the service in the year 1860 and was knighted in the year 1861 and left India. In the year 1862 and 1863 visited India and offered advice on some river valley projects.
His work in India was so much appreciated and honoured with K.C.S.I (Knight Commander of Supreme India) in the year 1877.The Spiritual solace strengthened and comforted him until the very end of his earthly mission i.e. the 24th of July 1899 at the age of 96 years.
In India due to outstanding and pioneer achievements of SIR ARTHUR COTTON, his name is enshrined in the hearts of the people forever and the new Barrage constructed across River Godavari Upstream side of the Anicut was also named after "SIR ARTHUR COTTON" and dedicated to the Nation by the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India in the year 1982.
MODERN DAY SIR ARTHUR COTTON
Jalayagnam -
'Jalayagnam', as the word speaks is a ritual for water conservation. It has been implemented by Hon. Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy as a election promise to the cultivating people of state to bring 82 lakh acres under irrigation in five years. This project accords the highest priority for the development of irrigation infrastructure, particularly in backward and drought prone areas by taking up this program in a big way. Jalayagnam includes a number of irrigation projects by construction of reservoirs and lift irrigation systems for lifting water from major rivers, particularly from Godavari to provide immediate irrigation benefits.
Jalayagnam programme to complete 32 major and 17 medium irrigation projects at a cost of Rs. 65,000 crores to provide irrigation to an extent of 71 lakh acres besides stabilization of an existing ayacut of 21.32 lakh acres while providing drinking water to a population of 1.2 crore and generating power to the tune of 2700 MW. Eight of these projects were to be completed before the kharif season of 2006.
The irrigation development was almost stagnant for the last decade and the previous governments were more concentrating on hi-tech and neglecting agriculture sector on which approximately 70% of the population depends. The fact that 26% of the population, mostly in rural areas, was living below the poverty line made him think whether science and technology had made a significant difference to the quality of life in rural areas compared to towns and cities. Also the suicides of many farmers from the state made Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy to give more significance and concentrate on the irrigation sector. Having recognized the importance of the agricultural sector for faster economic development, Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy started concentrating largely on its development and introduced several schemes for the benefit of the farmers among which is Jalayagnam project.
In the past 50 years, a total ayacut of 65 lakh acres was developed in the State. Jalayagnam, is expected to double the area under irrigation. Jalayagnam in Andhra Pradesh would constitute a major component of the Central government programme National Irrigation Mission's (NIM) target of bringing one crore hectares of land ( 2.5 crore acres) in the country under the plough.
The large allocation of funds for irrigation as the government considers irrigation an important growth engine. The most expensive of the projects are the lift irrigation projects intended to irrigate the dry Telangana region and supply water to the Anantapur-Ongole-Mehaboobnagar area which is "turning into a desert". With the land level being 300 metre above the water level, lift irrigation is supposed to be the only way out to take water to the dry region. Currently, 3,000 tmc water from Godavari is wasted into the sea as the land is at a higher elevation.For the first time in the post-independence era, the Congress government took up linking of Godavari and Krishna by constructing Indira Sagar Project and Rajiv Sagar project across River Godavari.By executing projects like Rajiv Sagar, Indira Sagar flood flow canal, SRSP Phase-II and so on, 21 lakh acres of parched land in Telangana region would be made fertile.
CONGRESS LOOSES A DYNAMIC LEADER
PEOPLE LOOSES A ANGEL A ROBIN HOOD A COTTON DORA AND A MAN FRIDAY
