The courts were forced to intervene when the governments failed to put an end to corruption in the mining deals, TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu said while referring to the Supreme Court’s order on the Obulapuram iron ore mine issue, while addressing a meeting at Rachapalli junction near here on Friday.
The TDP leader who is on the 200th day of his padayatra also chose the venue, near the site where the Anrak Alumina Company’s refinery is coming up, to blast the late Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, for grabbing the farmers’ lands to set up the factory but giving them back very little.
“The British and others took away our wealth, while Rajasekhara Reddy looted the mineral wealth of the State for his family. He handed over the Obulapuram mines to Gali Janardhana Reddy and the two of them made thousands of crores of rupees in just a few years,” the TDP president said.
‘Government quiet’
Though his party demanded action in this issue and other mining leases, the government kept quiet and now the Supreme Court had to intervene and pull up the government, Mr. Naidu said.
“Rajasekhara Reddy handed over 1.46 lakh acres of mining area in Bayyaram to his son-in-law and there was no limit to his grabbing people’s wealth,” he said.
He also showed a book brought out by him titled “Mining Mafia” which he distributed to all the people concerned in Delhi to explain corruption in mining deals in the State.
‘People will be losers’
Referring to the Anrak issue he said “You are paid just Rs. 3 lakh to Rs. 4 lakh for an acre which is worth Rs. 40 lakh. You are not given jobs and outsiders are working here, many farmers have become labourers and are forced to migrate. The fate of Girijans in the Agency area will be no better. The Congress government is giving them a lot of trouble as it plans to take up mining of bauxite (to be supplied to Anrak factory) in their area,” he said. Groundwater is becoming scarce here and pollution from the factory will affect people all around, Mr. Naidu said.
