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Naidu's trip to Italy, Israel ill-timed: CPI(M)

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Sept. 14. The CPI (M) has criticised the foreign tour of the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, at this juncture and said he can ill-afford to leave the State for a week when the farmers of Krishna delta are facing a crisis due to the poor availability of water.

As the head of the Government, Mr. Naidu's priority should be to attend to the problems of the State and not clamour for Formula One racing track with Italian sponsors or the high-investment drip and sprinkler irrigation of Israel, the CPI(M) Politburo member, Koratala Satyanarayana, told newsmen here on Sunday.

Mr. Satyanarayana said Mr. Naidu should have advanced his trip to Bangalore to discuss the sharing of Krishna water with his Karnataka counterpart, S.M. Krishna, following an invitation extended by the latter. Instead, he postponed his visit to September 20 though he got the invitation on September 7, a full four days before he left for Italy. This shows how much he is interested in racing rather than the problems of farmers.

The senior CPI(M) leader questioned Mr. Naidu's promise of uninterrupted power supply in the city to Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone when the agricultural sector cannot be ensured two to three hours of supply.

Mr. Satyanarayana asked the State Government to own up responsibility for the agitation by farmers of the wetlands who had taken up sowing but were not assured water from reservoirs. At the all-party meeting on September 2, the CPI (M) had told Mr. Naidu to take a firm decision on water release from Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar after getting a clear picture on the overall availability of water upstream from the Narayanpur and Alamatti reservoirs. He was asked to wait until September 15 when another all-party meeting could be held and a final decision taken. But he acted hastily, promising Rayalaseema farmers that he would not release water to the delta.

He said unless 14,000 to 15,000 cusecs of water was released from Nagarjunasagar the requirements of the farmers of the delta would not be met. Only 5,500 cusecs of water is being released now, of which 750 cusecs went to the Vijayawada Thermal Power Station.

Mr. Satyanarayana also said a critical period of cultivation was lost for maize and groundnut farmers due to 78 per cent deficit rainfall in the last two weeks.

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