Kakinada, Dec 01st: All people affected by HIV/AIDs in East Godavari district will be given pensions at Rs 200 per month shortly. The district administration will start a survey to identify eligible people for pensions soon after instructions from state government, the collector, Mr. Gopalakrishna Dwivedi said. Participating as chief guest on World AIDS Day organised by the district AIDS Control Society at the Collector's camp office on Tuesday, he said that nearly 24 lakh of people were living with HIV/AIDS, where in the state's contribution was around 5.2 lakh. The district had nearly 50, 000 victims of the disease, he said. A separate block for HIV/AIDS patients would be established shortly at the government general hospital, Mr. Dwivedi said.

Already Rs 10 lakh was sanctioned to the hospital management to start the construction works of the block, which was estimated at Rs 19 lakh. Earlier, the collector had breakfast with nearly 200 HIV affected children. Later, nearly 700 students of various colleges and schools in the city took part in a rally on AIDS from PR Government College. The Pithapuram MLA, Ms Vanga Gita, the ZP chairman, Mr. Ch. Srinivasa Venugopalakrishna was present among others. Meanwhile, the West Godavari Collector, Ms A. Vani Prasad, called for more awareness on HIV/AIDS among the general public to tackle its spread. Inaugurating the HIV/AIDS awareness rally at indoor stadium taken out to mark Worlds AIDS Day here on Tuesday, the Collector stated that both the government and several voluntary agencies were playing pro-active role to help people not to fall victims to the dreaded disease and added that the government was provided anti-retroviral therapy free of cost to the AIDS affected people.