Roads in Chandarlapadu area are damaged badly following the movement of a large number of lorries carrying sand from the quarries located near Amaravathi on the other side of the Krishna river in Guntur district. Local people in Popuru and Chandarlapadu areas complain that nearly 1,500 lorries are plying on the roads from Guntur district quarries every day.
The people of Popuru village and neighbouring areas are bearing the brunt of this heavy rush of sand-laden lorries. They are worried that though the Krishna district does not get any seigniorage fees from these quarries, the lorries from them are damaging the roads here.
Devineni Umamaheswara Rao, Mylavaram MLA and district unit president of Telugu Desam Party, charges the ruling party people's representatives with not taking any action to rectify the situation though the district people are facing lots of problems.
He also took objection to the laying of a short-cut road from Chintalapadu to Popuru for 15 kms by using Rs. 40 lakh funds under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
Mr. Umamaheswara Rao alleged that while the Chandarlapadu mandal was sanctioned Rs. 70 lakh under the NREGS, Rs. 49 lakh of this total amount was diverted for laying the short-cut road which was useful only for the private quarry managements and not the general public. The TDP MLA blamed Congress leader Vasantha Krishna Prasad for the diversion of NREGS funds.
