Rajahmundry, Oct. 14: The Centre is planning to develop the Papikonda wildlife sanctuary into a national park. The sanctuary is around 591 sq kms area and is spread over in East Godavari, West Godavari and Khammam districts. The forest authorities have recently carried out a survey to identify the thick forest areas adjoining the sanctuary limits and identified nearly 283 sq km.

KHAMMAM: Mobs held sway over this town on Friday as they repeatedly raided numerous fertilizer outlets with the police, unable to control the situation, watching helplessly.

Ibrahim Hafeezur Rehman

Emphasis on promotion of biofuels can be useful for solving rural energy problems.

Hyderabad, Sept. 7: The Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekar Reddy, on Sunday asked the Union minister for human resource development, Mr Arjun Singh, to set up the Indian School of Mines (ISM) university campus in Khammam district.

Thanking the ISM university, Dhanbad, for agreeing to establish an ISM campus in Andhra Pradesh, Dr Rajasekhar Reddy proposed that Khammam district was the most suitable to house the campus.

Khammam, Aug. 24: The farmers of the Nagarjunasagar project left canal second zone ayacut wanted the government to announce the date of releasing water to their zone. The government started releasing water to the first zone on August 13 but did not announce the details of the second zone water release. The farm operations started under the ayacut area of various minor and medium irrigation projects inclu-ding Bayyaram tank, Peda-vagu, Taliperu, Wyra, Palair and Kinnerasani.

Karimnagar, Aug. 18: Even while various trade unions are trying to ensure the participation of the Singareni coalminers in the ensuing nation-wide strike call on August 20, the Singareni management has launched a campaign to persuade the workmen to desist from the one-day strike.

Khammam, July 20: Keeping the demand in the district for fertilisers in view, the government decided to send a consignment of 2,500 tonnes. The District Central Cooperative Bank (DCCB) is selling the fertilisers to farmers through its primary agricultural cooperative societies.

The DCCB so far sold fertilisers worth of Rs 8 crore to farmers in the district and all the stock is over within a month. The farmers are approaching the concerned PACS for the fertilisers. The increasing demand for urea and potassium fertilisers forced the DCCB to take quich action.

Hyderabad, July 20: Forest fire causes major disaster to the vegetation in the state. Forest fires amount to 13.53 per cent of total blazes in the country. After Mizoram and Orissa, Andhra Pradesh has the largest number of fire spots according to the ministry of environment and forest department. Khammam, Kadapa and Prakasam figure in the list of top 30 districts with the highest number of fire incidents.

Hyderabad, July 20: Taking strong exception to the Andhra Pradesh government's aversion to displaced tribals from Chhattisgarh, the Human Rights Watch organisation has charged the state police and forest officials of direct involvement in destroying nine tribal habitations. A 182-page report titled, Human Rights Watch documents how since mid-2005, the state government has failed to provide indigenous tribal communities displaced from Chhattisgarh with basic assistance, including food, water, shelter, medical services, sanitation, and livelihood opportunities.

Hyderabad, July 13: Release of water to ayacut under Nagarjunasagar Project appears uncertain throwing agricultural operations in 22 lakh acres haywire. For the first time in the last four years, the irrigation department is not in a position to announce when the water is likely to be released in both right and left canals of the NSP.