Andhra Pradesh's new Human Resources Development Minister Nara Lokesh plans to bring radical changes in the education sector, and had started working on his action plan even before taking charge of his portfolio.
Lokesh, who is the son of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and also holds the portfolios of Information Technology, Electronics & Communication and Real Time Governance, is holding review meetings with senior officers of the Education Department and will soon hold meetings with the leaders of various student unions and parent organisations to know the issues plaguing the education sector for a long time and also find solutions to these problems.
He is very keen that the teachers should not be assigned any other task except supplying quality food during the mid-day meal for all the eligible while they extend quality education to their students.
After being sworn in as the minister, he started holding a Praja Darbar in his constituency Mangalagiri to have first-hand information on the problems that the people are facing. He is interacting with people on a daily basis.
According to TDP leaders close to Lokesh, the young minister inherited the philosophy of perseverance until the task was completed from his grandfather and the TDP founder, late N.T. Rama Rao, and his father Chandrababu Naidu. They said Lokesh’s target is to provide all the basic amenities in all schools, resolve all issues pending for the past several years in the higher education sector, recruit faculty by finding solutions to the issues pending before the courts for many years, and supply quality school-kits to the students.
Lokesh has also formulated a 100-day action plan to bring the past glory to the IT and Electronics sectors which lost their very existence during the previous five-year YSRCP rule in the state, they said.
When he was the Minister for Rural Development, IT and Electronics only for a couple of years, from 2017 to 2019, he undertook various developmental projects in all the wings. He created a record of sorts by taking steps to construct 25,000 km long CC roads in the rural areas of the state. Lokesh won the prestigious SKOCH Person of the Year Award in 2018 for the revolutionary changes that he brought in rural development and the Digital Leader of the Year award for introducing the latest technology in administration.
For the successful implementation of various schemes in panchayat raj and rural development, the state has been presented with the Innovation Award by the Centre and the department has also won another prestigious award of the Kalam Innovation in Governance.
On behalf of India, Lokesh got a special invitation in 2018 for the Annual Summit of the Entrepreneurship of the World Economic Forum held in China to represent the country. This apart, Lokesh is the lone Indian leader who has been nominated for the Network of Global Future Councils of the World Economic Forum.
With progressive ideas, he has invited globally renowned IT and electronics companies like HCL, TCS, Celkon and many others to set up their units in the state.
