CPI leader fears massive job cuts

By Our Staff Reporter

KHAMMAM, APRIL 23. The CPI state Secretary, Mr. S. Sudhakar Reddy, said on Monday that the State government was contemplating privatisating many departments and educational institutions as part of the move to reduce the staff in a big way.

Addressing a news conference along with the party leader, Mr. Puvvada Nageswara Rao, he said that the Government was also planning to minimise its spending on higher education too.

He said that the employees in the state were agitated the over steps being taken under the pressure of the World Bank to cut down staff by two percent annually. He said that the employees unions have been strongly protesting the privatisation moves. The employees problems were discussed with the NGOs but there was no significant change in the stand taken by the government.

The Joint Action committee was already on war path. The Government should consider the genuine demands of the employees, teachers and workers and should take steps to dispel their fears. He said that the Government should take decision on its own so far as the employees demands and benefits were concerned instead of succumbing to the pressure of the World Bank.

He said that the State was in the grip of a severe drought. Though Khammam was relatively better off, the districts of Anantapur and Mahabubnagar had been bearing the brunt. Water scarcity was also acute in certain pockets. Farmers were under pressure from the single windows for repayment of agriculture loans. In Anantapur district, in all 13,000 farmers

turned defaulters and their lands were being attached. The left parties would oppose the forcible recovery of loans.

He wanted the flawed crop insurance scheme scrapped as it did not benefit the farmers affected by calamities in any way.

He demanded that the Government introduce a full-fledged insurance scheme which could ensure farmers a fair deal in the event of crop losses.

He voiced grave concern over sale of children in Medak owing to poverty conditions in which parents had been languishing. He said that the Government which announced a special programme for the protection of girl child failed to implement it in its true spirit. The benefits of the scheme did not reach the poverty- stricken tribes who deserved it. In Devarkonda village, a mother sold her sick girl child only to save her life after realising that treatment in hospital was beyond her reach.

The CPI leader wanted a special package announced for revival of fortunes of weavers in the State. Suicides of the weavers owed to the failure of the Government to give them minimum support. He said that the need of the hour was revival of the rebate system on handloom textiles. He stressed the need for modernisation of the looms, grant of liberal assistance to the weavers thus enabling them to repay their loans and payment of ex gratia to the kin of those who have died so far.

On the gram panchayat elections, he ruled out the scope for a front with the Congress in fighting the elections. But there could be local-level discussions with the Congress. Wherever the Left parties had no one in contest, the CPI would prefer to support the Congress, he said.

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Section  : Southern States
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