Leaders of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), who held a roundtable conference in Rajamahendravaram on Wednesday, passed a resolution to conduct a ‘Jana Gosha Yatra’ on April 19 to ‘expose the failure of the Centre and State governments in completing the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) of over one lakh families who were displaced due to the Polavaram irrigation project’.
CPI State Secretary K. Ramakrishna and his CPI(M) counterpart V. Srinivasa Rao on Wednesday said they wanted to remind the Centre that the R&R of the Polavaram evacuees remained its responsibility and that it should not try to evade it.
The participants, including those representing the affected areas, lamented that little had been done to alleviate their plight despite the Central government affirming its commitment to the R&R exercise at the time of bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
Special Category Status (SCS) Hameela Sadhana Samithi State president Ch. Srinivasa Rao demanded that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy constitute a special team to press for funds from the Centre for completion of the Polavaram R&R exercise.
TDP State vice-president Jyothula Nehru, Congress Kisan Cell president J. Gurunatha Rao and other intellectuals spoke at the roundtable. CPI district secretary T. Madhu and CPI(M) district secretary T. Arun spoke about the status of the displaced families in the Godavari region and their day to day challenges.
