Date:18/09/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/18/stories/2007091855860600.htm

Andhra Pradesh

CPI(M) to intensify ‘Bhoo Poratam’ from October

Staff Reporter

Sangareddy: Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member S.Ramachandran Pillai has said that the ongoing ‘Bhoo Poratam’ programme would be intensified from October and expanded to other states. He was here to participate in the ‘Bhoo Poratam’ programme taken up by the Medak district unit in Kolkur village of Sadasivapet mandal. Large number of farmers participated in the programme despite of heavy downpour.

Addressing the landless in the village after launching the struggle by tilling a piece of sixty acre government land on the outskirts of the village , Pillai termed the programme as a model for the oppressed lot to emulate in other states . He pointed out that slogan of land for the tiller has not materialized even after sixty years of independence.

He said that the CPI(M) took the decision to take up struggle for agricultural land and house pattas in the states where the governments failed to undertake distribution. He said that Left-run

Governments in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura were the torch bearers in this regard.

Address indebtedness later addressing the media at the party office here Pillai, who is also president of the Akhil Bharat Kisan Sabha, said that the land struggle of Andhra Pradesh would form a part of deliberations at the National committee meeting of the All India agricultural workers union in Khammam and also at the Kisan Sabha’s two day Kisan Council meet in Chennai on 22 of this month.

He demanded the state government to distribute land also to save the peasants from indebtedness.

He said that 80 percent of the farmers in Andhra Pradesh are indebted while the national average is only 48 per cent.

He also demanded the government to order an inquiry into the alleged large scale corruption in Indiramma housing programme and punish the guilty. CPI(M) district secretary Chukka Ramulu was also present.