Communist Party of India State secretary K. Ramakrishna on Monday contended that the State government lacked the will to address the issues concerning depressed farmers and to complete early the Rs. 5,150-crore Pula Subbaiah Veligonda project, the lifeline of fluoride-affected Prakasam district.
Suicide by farmers and farm labourers had gone up by 44.4 per cent in the State to 916 in 2016 due to the ‘anti-farmer’ policies of the Chandrababu Naidu government, he told reporters at Kondepi near here.
Demonetisation, which coincided with the Rabi cropping season, added to the woes of farmers and farm labourers, who tilled leased land holdings under hostile farming conditions like denial of institutional credit, he said.
“A few review meetings and empty words will not ensure completion of the project, the work on which has come to a grinding halt for want of funds,” he said after paying homage to deceased CPI leader P. Chenchamma.
‘Deadlines missed’
Starved of funds, even the electricity bill to the tune of Rs. 2 crore incurred during the tunnel drilling work at the project site, could not be cleared, he recalled and wanted Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to step up allocation for the project which had missed several deadlines in the past including the one set by Mr. Naidu to see through the first phase of the project by 2016 end.
Taking objection to the way the ongoing Janmabhoomi - Maa Vooru had been conducted without any role for the local bodies concerned, he said “the programme is being conducted more as a party affair, leaving dissatisfied the common people who come with numerous pleas.” The State government should decentralise powers and devolving finances to the local bodies as mandated by the Constitution, he added.
