Pottangi: With the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections set to be held after a month, the sight of the state Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena and the secretaries of other departments returning from a visit to the fringe areas along the Andhra-Odisha border has become a topic of discussion in various circles including the power corridors. According to reports, Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena and Principal Secretary, Agriculture Arabinda Padhee arrived in Koraput district Friday and held election-related discussions with the district administration. Koraput Collector V Keerthi Vasan, DIG (South Western Range) Charan Singh Meena, Superintendent of Police Abhinav Sonkar, Sub-Collector Benudhar Shabar, local BDO Sukant Kumar Patnaik and Tehsildar Devendra Bahadur Singh Dharwa were present in the meeting. In the meeting, the officials discussed the status of five frontier booths out of the total nine polling booths under Kotia panchayat. However, they were tightlipped about the details of the discussions.
On the other hand, it is assumed that such a visit of the Chief Secretary and the Principal Secretary of the Agriculture department may have many implications for neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. The two top officials, including other officials of the district, reached the panchayat to see the strawberry cultivation in Barabandh village and discussed the benefits and losses with the present farmers. Later they visited and took stock of the panchayat office, Special Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya (OAV), Primary Health Centre (PHC), Jagannath temple and 5T schools, and discussed studies and related issues with the school students. Finally, the Chief Secretary advised the district and block administrations to look into creating awareness among the people to increase the voting rate in the booths located in the border areas.
