A disastrous start to Naidu's second term, says Cong.

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, OCT. 14. The Congress has alleged that the one-year TDP rule after the general elections in 1999 has caused misery to different sections of society because of broken election promises, unbearable tariff burden and a negative growth in industry and other sectors.

Addressing a press conference on Saturday, the Congress official spokespersons, Mr.K. Rosaiah, Mr.V. Rambhupal Chowdary and Mr.K.S.R. Murthy, said the industrial growth fell from 7 per cent last year to 4.5 per cent.

The poorer sections were put to severe hardship due to the unprecedented increase in power tariff and bus fares while farmers had no relief from debts and unremunerative prices for their produce. The power tariff in Andhra Pradesh was ten times higher then the tariff in the U.S., they claimed.

Mr. Rosaiah pointed out that RTC fares were hiked by 6 paise per km for ordinary services in one go. In the last four years, the fare for ordinary services had gone up by 11 paise per km.

The Congress leaders were also highly critical of the postponement of the elections to the panchayat raj and cooperative bodies on some pretext or the other, ``which appears to be the singular achievement of the Naidu Government in its second stint of power.''

Mr. Rosaiah said the Government had laboured hard to project a brighter side to people through ``pompous publicity campaigns and melas.'' But welfare schemes like Adarana and Mundadugu, which were launched with fanfare on the eve of elections, were quietly wound up. The Cabinet itself had concluded that the Adarana scheme was plagued by corruption but no follow-up action was initiated.

The Congress leaders said the Minister for Major Industries, Mr.K. Vidyadhara Rao, himself admitted that nearly half the existing industries had been closed in the last two years. They ridiculed the drive to regularise illegal power connections which ``ended up as a farce'' as it had only encouraged illegal tapping of power. Disputing the claims of improvement in power supply in rural areas, they wanted the Government to publish the list of villages in any district where the three-phase power supply was maintained for 9 hours a day without interruption.

Privatisation of education was encouraged indiscriminately, much to the detriment of poorer and underprivileged students. Prohibition, over which the TDP ran a movement to attract women voters, was totally forgotten and bar licences were given liberally to private clubs. The privileges of MLAs were undermined with the withdrawal of the constituency development fund and housing quota.

The Congress leaders said the Government tried to suppress the movement against the power tariff hike with the might of the police. The Chief Minister, Mr.N. Chandrababu Naidu, talked about computers and Internet facility in villages which were starved of drinking water. The Government should redefine its priorities and attend to the urgent needs of people, they demanded.

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Section  : Southern States
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