Andhra Pradesh

Work on Handri Neeva launched

Staff Reporter

TDP under fire for campaign against Government schemes

MAKING A POINT: The Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, addressing a public meeting at Uravakonda on Thursday. (Right) Women displaying posters against TDP stand on irrigation projects.

URAVAKONDA (ANANTAPUR DT.): The Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, has exuded confidence that people will reject the Telugu Desam Party completely in whatever elections held after two years, as the schemes taken up by the Government will start yielding results by the time.

Addressing a public meeting here on Thursday after conducting `bhoomi puja' for the stage-I of Handri Neeva project near Chinna Mushtur village in the district, he said TDP leaders were spending sleepless nights with the fear of impending success of irrigation projects and other schemes taken up by the Government on a massive scale.

"Fruits of our schemes will start reaching people after two years. Won't you uproot the TDP in whatever elections held at that time'', Dr. Reddy asked the public, for which the latter responded with a loud `yes'.

The TDP was very much worried about the success of the projects and that was why the party had launched a large-scale misinformation campaign against the Government, the Chief Minister said.

The repeated charges of corruption against engineers and leaders of the ruling party being made by the TDP were baseless, he asserted.

"If you (TDP leaders) have any grudge against the Congress you can show it on the ruling party but not on the projects intended to benefit people," the Chief Minister advised the Opposition.

Dr. Reddy alleged that the TDP chief, N. Chandrababu Naidu, had deceived people of Anantapur district thrice with regard to Handri Neeva project.

Mr. Naidu had forgotten the project completely after the victory in 1999 elections.

The Stage-I works of the project taken up with Rs. 1,300 crores would commence in all the 14 packages finalised so far with an estimated cost of Rs. 350 crores. The Government was planning to complete the Stage-I by 2007 kharif and give water to 80,000 acres in Kurnool and 1.2 lakh acres in Anantapur.

He also announced the launch of Stage-II works of the project, which would benefit the southern parts of Anantapur, in June-July.

On a plea made by elected representatives of Anantapur and Handri Neeva Jala Sadhana Samithi, Dr. Reddy announced lowering of water drawal level for the project from Srisailam reservoir from 874 ft earlier to 841 ft, as has been designed for TGP, SRBC, SLBC, Veligonda, Galeru-Nagari and other projects.

Karnataka meet

The Chief Minister stated that his scheduled meeting with his Karnataka counterpart, N. Dharam Singh, at Bangalore on Wednesday over the irrigation issues was cancelled due to apprehensions of the latter on taking up the issues before the second award of KWDT.

Speaking at Uravakonda after commencing works on Handri Neeva project near Chinna Mushtur the Chief Minister said he had planned to take up issues like modernisation of inter-State Tungabhadra canal systems, LLC and HLC, and other issues related to irrigation.

But, Karnataka was not ready to speak on the issue at the present juncture suspecting negative impact on the prospects of Karnataka in the second award of KWDT.

Government plan

Dr. Reddy said the State Government was planning to take up all the contentious issues with the KWDT, if Karnataka was not willing for a dialogue across the table.

The Chief Minister, however, hoped that Karnataka would agree for modernisation of HLC and LLC systems.

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