Leaders of various political parties who took part in a roundtable organised by the CPI on ‘Polavaram project displaced families and rehabilitation initiatives’ on Monday decided to go on a two-day tour to the Polavaram project submergence areas on August 16 and 17. It was also decided that protests would be staged in Polavaram in September.
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Rashtriya Praja Congress leaders V. Srinivas, Jatti Gurnadham, farmers’ associations leders Alla Gopala Krishna, M. Suryanaryana, Lok Satta State executive member B. Venkataramana (Babu) and others took part in the roundtable.
The CPI also demanded the State government took up the construction works only after the total implementation of the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) packages.
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Addressing the rountable, CPI State secretary K. Ramakrishna said that both the State and Central governments were ‘enacting dramas’ on the Polavaram project and implementatin of the R&R packages.
“The Project Displaced Families (PDFs) have been left to their fate. No sincere effort has been put in to pay the package benefits to the project evecuees. Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy did not take up the Polavaram project issues at the NITI Aayog meeting held a day ago. The State government is silent on many issues such as Special Category Status (SCS) to the State,” he said.
CPI(M) Central Committee member P. Madhu said that the problems would not have cropped up had the issues of project evacuees been addressed in the first place. The State government should mount pressure on the Centre to implement the R&R packages as the Polavarm project is a national project. The entire cost should be borne by the Centre. It was a question of 2.5 lakh people. Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy should lead an all-party delegation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to mount pressure on the Centre, he said.