Government doing best to tackle violence

HYDERABAD: There is no place for violence in a democratic society, and extremism and terrorism have become stumbling blocks for growth and development, governor ESL Narasimhan has said and added that the state government has dealt with the problem in a professional manner.In his Republic Day addresss at the Parade Grounds here on Thursday, he said that because peace was a pre-requisite for development and well-being of the society, the government was committed to all-round development of the state.“The government has taken steps to maintain law and order in order to achieve a balanced growth. With sustained persuasion, six more districts— East Godavari, Karimnagar, Warangal, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam— have recently been included under the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) of the Government of India. Adilabad and Khammam have been already been covered by the scheme.“In order to meet the demand-supply gap in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and to improve the health care sector, additional 700 MBBS seats will be added with effect from the 2012-13 academic year. “The current year is marked by the vagaries of monsoon with deficient rainfall and resultant drought conditions across the state, leading to declaration of 876 mandals as drought-affected. Understanding the travails of the farmer and the adversities being faced by the farm sector, a slew of measures have been initiated to help the farming community.“The government  will provide ration cards to all the eligible and needy households. As many as 2.25 crore households will benefit from the measure which covers a population of nearly 7.5 crore.“For transparency and accountability in public services and bringing down corruption in the delivery of services, the government is planning to set up `Mee Seva’ centres across the state where people can obtain income, residential, birth/death certificates without much difficulty. A pilot programme has been taken up in Chittoor and Krishna districts. “Under the Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu, the government aims to provide placement to 15 lakh youths by 2014.“The government has reduced the transmission and distribution losses from 21.42 percent in 2004-05 to 17.05 percent in 2010-11 which is one of the lowest in the country. It is committed o bring about energy efficiency by encouraging private participation in these endeavours.“The Industrial Investment Policy for 2010-15 envisages creation of five lakh jobs per year with an overall investment of `15,000 crore annually for achieving 17 percent growth in case of manufacturing growth. The state will emerge  as an industrial hub, given its natural resources and a pro-active policy framework.“At the recent Partnership Summit the state government signed MoUs on investment proposals worth `6.48 lakh crore with a potential for 6.78 lakh jobs. The investments will include Rs 1 lakh crore of foreign direct investments,’’ the governor said.