YSRCP dharna against TDP failure on drought

Hyderabad, April 13: YSR Congress would launch an agitation against the Government’s failure in tackling the severe drought conditions prevailing in the State and its inefficiency in getting Central funds and the callous attitude towards the employment guarantee scheme.

‘The state is facing severe drought situation and the state has been indifferent in addressing the issues and in seeking central assistance. It has also failed in implementing the national rural employment guarantee scheme and we will agitate at all the collector and mandal offices to highlight the failure of the state government in this regard,’ party senior  leader and MLC Ummareddy Venkateswarlu told reporters here on Wednesday.

The state could secure only paltry amount of RS 443 crores as Central assistance while other states were liberally given the aid ranging from Rs 600 croes to Telangana, in two phases, to Rs 3,050 crore to Maharashtra for mitigating drought which shows that the TDP government is under compulsions and is not in a position to seek the Central assistance to the needed effect.

‘Party President YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will also participate in the dharna programme which would be shortly finalized,’ he said adding that the state has been showing neglect towards the unprecedented drought which is sweeping across the 13 districts of the state.

The rabi crop has come down due to lack of water, farmers suicides are on rise at 306, severe scarcity of drinking water scarcity, fodder and livestock which is being sold away to ablators and farmhands constantly migrating are but the clear indicators of severe drought conditions.

Another indication of the severe drought condition is the glaring fact that of the 4 TMC water released from Srisailam dam only 2.5 TMC reached the destination as there was an evaporation loss of 1.5 TMC, he said.

The rural employment funds were misused by increasing the percentage of machinery component and reducing the human component which adds up to misery of the people in face of the drought. Though the Centre has hiked the number of days to be covered under the scheme from 100 days to 150 days the state is providing employment only for 47 days, he said.

We demand that the input subsidy should be hiked and the number of days under the rural employment scheme is hiked to 150 as per the Centre’s directive, he said adding that the agitation against the government’s failure in tackling drought will be taken up across the state.

The indefinite hunger strike by Amarnath demanding Railway zone would be held from April 14 at Vizag, he said