Be wary of TDP govt. claims, Jaitley told

Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee vice-president and official spokesperson N. Tulasi Reddy urged Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley not to get carried away by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s claims.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Mr. Reddy said Mr. Jaitley’s statement about the recent interlinking of the Krishna and Godavari rivers being the first in the country shows that he went by the State government’s claim, which was misleading.

Sir Arthur Cotton's achievement

Sir Author Cotton linked the rivers Penna and Tungabhadra with the Kurnool-Cuddapah Canal, more popularly known as K.C. Canal in 1866 itself, Mr. Reddy said.

Similarly, the Buckingham Canal connected the Krishna and the Godavari, Tungabhadra High Level Canal, Handri-Neeva and Galeru-Nagar projects also linked different rivers. These were all historic facts that could not be wished away.

The TDP government was, however, falsely claiming that the linking of the Godavari and Krishna Rivers with the Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Scheme was the first in the country. Mr. Naidu and the Minister for Water Resources Devineni Umamaheswara Rao were repeatedly claiming that the primary objective of Pattiseema was to provide water to Ralayaseema, but there was no mention of Rayalaseema in the GO on the project.

Mr. Tulasi Reddy alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party was working hand in glove with the TDP to deceive the people of the State.

The BJP promised to get back all the black money that belonged to Indians that was stashed in foreign banks within months of being elected, but nothing like that had happened even after two years.

Petrol prices

After the decontrol of petroleum the price of diesel and petrol should be linked to price of crude in the international market, he said.

Though there was a 70 per cent reduction in crude oil prices, the Central and State governments had increased the excise duty on the fuels eight times without giving customers any relief.