Date:12/02/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/02/12/stories/2004021203170300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

CITU releases booklet on `World Bank terms'

By Our Special Correspondent

TIRUPATI. Feb. 11. The Chittoor district unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led CITU today released a booklet comprising the alleged conditionalities imposed by the World Bank on the State Government and the latter's purported `secret letter' to the World Bank giving its consent to implement its diktats.

The CITU in a press release charged that the ruling TDP Government had, in its secret letter dated March 15, 2003, conveyed to the World Bank its readiness to enforce the conditionalities such as slashing the spending on employees and pensioners, pruning the staff strength in Government departments fixing 50 years as retirement age, jacking up the power tariff again, privatisation/closing down of State-owned PSUs, etc.

The CITU said that for the benefit of the public it had made available copies of the booklet together with the secret letter at its Praja Shakthi office and its party office and also fixed a cover of a mere Re. one for the edition.

All India strike

The CITU State Secretary, Paladugu Bhaskar, and the general secretary of the Andhra Pradeh Contract Workers' Union, Muthyam Rao, have given a call to the trade unions and the party cadres to make the nationwide strike on February 24 a success. . They also had a dig at the trade unions affiliated to the ruling parties like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, etc., which they said had been blindly supporting the Supreme Court verdict against the constitutionally-guaranteed right to strike and called upon them to look beyond the party hues and join the national stir called to protect its hard-earned right to strike.