Kakinada, Jan 26th: The 61st Republic Day was celebrated at the Police Grounds here on Tuesday amid singing of National Anthem and patriotic songs by the students of various schools in the city. The East Godavari District collector, Mr. Gopala Krishna Dwevedi unfurled the national flag and took the salute. In this customary speech, the collector said that the district has seen growth in all aspects.

Speaking about the welfare programs he said that under the implementation of National Guarantee Scheme till now a total of 7.72 lakh families were issued job cards under the scheme and provided works by spending Rs 421 crore. A total of 3.44 lakh women got membership in the YSR Abhaya Hastam pension scheme, under which 27,000 members are receiving pensions, he added. Rajiv Arogyasri scheme saw the spending of Rs 112.85 crore for conducting major surgeries to 36,205 patients, the collector added.

Earlier collector facilitated freedom fighters Alluri Venkataramaraju, Chodipalli Hanumanthu Rao and S. Venkateswarlu. The collector gave away prizes to the best employees in the district. Social welfare minister Pilli Subhash Chandrabose, ZP Chairman Ch. Venugopala Krishna, MLAs N. Seshareddy and others took part in the program.