Advocate Urges Governor to Revive ITDA in Rampachodavaram District

Visakhapatnam: The functioning of the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), especially in Rampachodavaram district, has stagnated or turned inactive, in the absence of approvals from the governing body. The problems were further aggravated by the setting up of new districts thereby creating a ‘governance vacuum’ within the ITDAs, said M.V.R. Prakash, an advocate from Rampachodavaram.

Prakash made an appeal to Andhra Pradesh governor Syed Abdul Nazeer and sought his attention pertaining to critical governance issues affecting the scheduled areas of the state.

Speaking further, he said that the governing body had stopped annual general meetings over the past three years and this has rendered the ITDA ‘inactive’.

In his representation to the governor, Prakash emphasised that ITDA is an autonomous institution and it was established across the country for the socio-economic development of tribal population. The ITDA was instrumental in implementing various development initiatives such as literacy rate, reduction in dropouts, enhancing the educational infrastructure, as well as promoting income-generating activities within tribal community. Prakash also said that in the absence of amending the bylaws to align with the newly formed districts, such as Alluri Sitarama Raju, the effective governance and the functioning of the ITDA Rampachodavaram and ITDA Chinturu was compromised.

Hence, the advocate urged the governor to take steps to revive the ITDA operation.