The Hindu : BJP leaders' plea for study on palm trees

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 24, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

BJP leaders' plea for study on palm trees

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD April 23: The BJP has demanded the Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricutural University (ANGRAU) to take up a study on the drying up of palm trees under the impact of heat and drought in various parts of the State.

Hundreds of these trees have dried up at Amberpet village of Maheswaram mandal, a few kilometres from the university campus. This is an unusual phenomenon, the party spokesmen, S.V. Seshagiri Rao and P. Prabhakar, told newsmen here on Wednesday.

Discussing the findings of the district tours undertaken by party leaders during the last few days to assess drought situation, they said the ground reality about the implementation of drought relief works was far different from what the State Government claimed. The Government machinery was `heartless' to the problems faced by villagers. "The bureaucratic arrogance was so evident by the attitude of the officials not willing to help the drought-affected.

Mr. Rao said a long queue of villagers waiting with empty pots to fetch water from a source in the scorching sun from noon to 2 p.m. at a village in Shamshabad mandal, which he had visited, was a pathetic scene. The staggered supply of power had led to the overhead tanks not getting filled. The power supply was no more than seven hours a day and that too with many interruptions, he added.

Regarding the Government's insistence that the farmers give in writing that their borewells had dried up as a precondition for disconnecting the power supply and giving them the credit in the bills, Mr. Rao said this had caused apprehensions among them whether the connections would be recharged at all when they needed the wells with the arrival of rains. He felt that oral instructions of farmers should be enough for disconnection.

Mr. Prabhakar said distribution of rice to labourers under the Food-for- work (FFW) programme by measuring the output of work was not remunerative. They got two or two-and-a-half kg of rice at the most. Instead, the number of working hours or days should form the basis to determine the wage. He also said that the cattle camps were set up just for namesake. The animals were fed stalks of maize.

Mr. Prabhakar asked the Government to restrain officials from recovering crop loans forcibly and assure the farmers about credit for the next kharif.

Terming the Bharat Jagaran yatra of CPI as one aimed at associating BJP with Hindu communalism, Mr. Prabhakar wondered whether the party supported the ISI and jehadi activities.

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