Saturday, Feb 22, 2003
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Andhra Pradesh
By Our Special Correspondent
above petty considerations and work together to mitigate people's hardships. The Chief Minister, who was replying to a three-day debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor for his address to the Assembly, said this was the worst drought in the last three decades as both the South-West and North East monsoons had failed. As a result, major reservoirs had dried up and water scarcity was felt even in Krishna and Godavari deltas. As many as 1.18 crores of agricultural labourers had been deprived of gainful employment and 8,291 borewells had dried up. The Government had declared 1,041 mandals across 22 districts drought-affected and chalked out short and long-term relief plans. Outlining these plans, he said instructions had been sent out clearly to ensure that elected panchayat bodies alone should be entrusted with all drought relief work. Since employment generation was the topmost priority, the Sarpanch and the Panchayat Secretary would be held accountable for ensuring that only manual labour was deployed. The Chief Minister said the Government would make sufficient funds available for drought relief works by diverting the budgets of other departments, if necessary. Senior officers would be asked to tour districts every weekend to monitor works while Joint Collectors would be designated as Drought Commissioners in their respective districts. Reviewing the water supply position in urban areas, Mr. Naidu said 63 municipalities were suffering from water shortage in varying degrees while the remaining 53 had no problems. In Hyderabad, only 162 mgd of drinking water was being supplied against a demand of 230 mgd. Mr. Naidu announced that the Krishna Water supply scheme launched last year for tapping 16.5 tmcft was already under progress and its first phase would be completed by March 2004 providing relief to the Twin Cities. As for Vizag, he reiterated his promise to augment water supply by November 2003 to avert possible closure of the steel plant. Refuting the Opposition's allegation that the irrigation sector had been neglected, he said his Government had given an unprecedented emphasis to irrigation. The Government planned to encourage drip and sprinkler irrigation by giving subsidies and loans. Stoutly defending his economic reform programme, Mr. Naidu referred exhaustively to the successes achieved by Communist China in various fields, and said every country today accepted the need for reforms.
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