The Prakasam District Development Forum(PDDF) on Wednesday decided to give a push to the movement for location of a central public sector port at Ramayapatnam.
The prolonged delay in setting up a central port in the district belied the hopes of the people of the backward district, who waited to see port-led industrial development, PDDF president Ch.Ranga Rao told a media conference here on Wednesday.
The PDDF would move the Supreme Court if needed and mobilise civil society organisations and leaders cutting across political lines for a protracted struggle to achieve the demand, PDDF leader P.Govindaiah, also a noted lawyer, asserted.
‘No concrete steps so far’
It was unfortunate that though the State government had given its consent to the Centre for locating a major port at Ramayapatnam instead of at Dugarajapatnam in the wake of the Niti Aayog raising questions over the viability of the latter site for the project, the Centre had not taken concrete steps for anchoring the port in Prakasam district so far, he said.
He expressed concerns over reports that the State government was mulling development of port-led industries in the Kavali region in Nellore district instead of in Prakasam district, diluting the objective of the project to provide logistics support to National Industrial and Manufacturing Zone and Donakonda industrial corridor.
Acharya N.G. Ranga Kisan Samastha general secretary Ch.Seshaiah questioned the sincerity of the ruling YSR Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party which had launched a series of stirs during the previous the TDP regime. But they had failed to ground the project when now in the saddle.
Congress farmers wing State vice-president V.Rajagopala Reddy said the State was entitled to a port under the State Reorganisation Act akin to Polavaram irrigation project. The State had been a sufferer on both the counts as the Jagan Mohan Reddy Government failed to convince the Centre on the State’s cause.
