Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Cong. demands all-party meet on drought works

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD April 25. The Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee has demanded that the Government immediately convene an all-party meeting to discuss about works to be launched with the 15 lakh tonnes of rice allocated by the Central Government since November for taking up drought relief works.

The APCC has also demanded that Collectors circulate details of the distribution of rice to different villages and the subsequent launch of various works to all political parties to ensure that rice was not misused by the "yellow shirts'' as had happened in the Food-for-work programme.

Addressing a press conference on Friday, the PCC chief spokesman, K Rosaiah, took exception to the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu's warning to sarpanches that action would be initiated against the sarpanches who fail to initiate works in their respective villages expeditiously. "The Chief Minister's threat of scrapping the cheque power and relieving sarpanches of their powers is not aimed at exhorting panchayats to take up works. The threats are only aimed at pressuring sarpanches of Opposition parties including the BJP who constitute 50 per cent of the total strength of sarpanches,'' he said.

Stating that the Government had allocated only 10 lakh tonnes out of the 15 lakh tonnes released by the Centre recently, he said that if the Government was committed to initiating action against those delaying the launch of works, action should be taken against the officials who were taking a few months to make the entries of the rice received and the way the stocks were being distributed.

Mr. Rosaiah objected to the remarks made by the Minister for Panchayat Raj, N. Janardhan Reddy, calling upon people to stage dharnas in front of houses of sarpanches who fail to initiate drought relief works in their villages. "The same Minister who described the demonstrations made by Opposition parties as a drama wants people to do the same. The Minister's statement is highly irresponsible as it would only help fuel differences among villages,'' he said adding there were already incidents of clashes in some villages following Mr. Janardhan Reddy's call.

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