Karwar: District In-charge minister RV Deshpande instructed officers to begin construction work of 33 new hostels buildings of Backward & Minority Community (BCM) students in Uttara Kannada district as soon as possible at Karnataka Development Programmes (KDP) progress review meeting held at the deputy commissioner’s office in Karwar.

Presently, there are 93 BCM hostels in the district. 42 are functioning in rented buildings of which 33 hostels will have new buildings soon. Approval for construction of eight more hostel buildings, five new hostels for SC students and construction of Ambedkar Bhavans at 18 places has been received , he said.

He said advice must be sought from advocate general for solving the confusion with regard to issue of scheduled caste certificate to people of Moger community in the district. The deputy commissioner will be directed to take suitable steps in this regard.

Sixty seven houses have been approved for fishermen and steps have been taken to provide life jackets to all fishermen. Deshpande informed that compensation given to fishermen who drown accidentally in sea while fishing has been increased from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.

Government order will be implemented for addressing the obstructions in implementation of forest Rights Act as 91,200 applications for ‘patta’ had been received in the district under Forest Rights Act, he added.

ZP President Jayashree Mogere, ZP Vice-President Santosh Renake, Deputy Commissioner SS Nakul, MLA Satish Sail, MLA Mankalu Vaidya, Shivaram Hebbar, SL Ghotnekar and district level officers others were present.