Andhra Pradesh

`YSR Government flop on many fronts'

By Our Special Correspondent

TIRUPATI, FEB. 24 . Former Union Minister and senior BJP leader, Ch.Vidyasagar Rao, today launched a broadside over the working of the Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy Government and termed it a `flop' on all fronts.

Mr Rao, at a media conference here, listed the alleged bungling and irregularities the State Government had committed on vital issues like irrigation, Telangana, naxalites, the Paritala episode and so on. He charged that except indulging in political rhetoric and tall talk on his five select topics which the BJP leader termed as YSR's `Panchasheel', he was doing precious little to make his panchasheel a reality as he neither had the plan nor the political will or the commitment to do it.

Doubts expressed

He said that though the State Government claimed that it has earmarked 40% of its budget for irrigation as part of its rather `utopian' plan to complete in the next five years all the 26-odd pending irrigation projects spending about Rs.46,000 crores, the BJP leader expressed his scepticism on it as most of the projects reportedly did not have the mandatory clearances from various agencies like Central Water Commission, Forest and Environment, nor the technical and financial viability reports. He charged that except to `amass' commission on the works by rushing through the tender process without observing any transparency or the prescribed procedures, the YSR Government did not seem to have any other intention.

He also alleged in this connection that the CWC had returned to the State Government the project report it had submitted to it on the ground that it did not contain the vital `irrigation report.'

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