The year-long agitation seeking construction of Bandar port culminated in a public meeting here on Thursday. To coincide with the occasion, a bandh was also observed in which traders and shop owners voluntarily downed their shutters. Schools remained closed and roads wore a deserted look.
Welfare associations of various trade bodies and employees put up tents and staged dharna seeking construction of the port. Similar agitations were also organised in places such as Pedana and Challpalli.
MLAs and leaders of various political parties, barring the ruling Congress, attended the meeting to express their solidarity with the Bandar Port Sadhana Committee, which is spearheading the movement. They demanded that the government commence works on the port immediately.
Speakers at the meeting doubted the government's sincerity in fulfilling the promises it had made to the people.
The Bandar port project was a long-cherished dream of the people of the district and the region. The government was not making any efforts to overcome the hurdles in the port's construction, they alleged.
Workers of the port were in a limbo ever since the former Chief Minister, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, laid the foundation stone for the port. The State government had promised to commence works immediately in December 2010, February 2011, and June 2011.
The government replaced the Maytas Infra with Navayuga Engineering Company Ltd. as the lead promoter of the Machilipatnam Port Project in 2010, but land was yet to be acquired and handed over to the developer, which was causing considerable delay in the overall development of the port , they said.
Raw deal alleged
Deploring that Krishna district had been given a raw deal in many aspects, they said the people were pinning high hopes on the port as it was expected to give a boost to industrial development and economic growth in the district.
Mylavaram MLA and TDP district president Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and sadhana committee general secretary D. Sreeramachandra Murthy were present.
