The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : `Disparities in society on the rise'

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Sunday, Oct 01, 2006
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

`Disparities in society on the rise'

Special Correspondent

Parties agree growth should cover every section

SHARING VIEWS: BJP leader B. Dattatreya, PCC president K. Keshava Rao, national coordinator of Lok Satta Jayaprakash Narayan and CPI(M) secretary B.V. Raghavalu at a meeting convened by the CII in Hyderabad on Saturday. — Photo: G. Krishnaswam y

HYDERABAD: In spite of their different political ideologies, all major political parties appear to be concurring on one issue - adopting a growth model that includes every section of society.

Participating in a meeting convened by the Confederation of Indian Industry here on Saturday, representatives of Congress, Telugu Desam, CPI(M), CPI and Lok Satta lamented that the present pace of growth was giving rise to disparities among various sections in society.

Core areas unaddressed

APCC president K. Keshava Rao regretted that the country lacked its own model for development after the reforms in the 1990s wherein some core areas had been left unaddressed. The policy should, therefore, incorporate key areas like health, education and provision of other basic amenities.

Telugu Desam Party leader K. Vijayarama Rao said the definition of poverty had changed and issues like food, clothing, education, health and shelter ought to form part of the definition. While globalisation was pushing in huge sums of money into the country, it was not being targeted at the deserving sections.

The CPI(M) State Secretary B.V. Raghavulu Raghavulu said the spreading inequalities - rich becoming super rich and poor becoming poorer - had become increasingly evident in the post reform era and this needed to be addressed. The present development paradigm ignored issues like land reforms without which there could be no proper solution to the problems.

Increasing unrest

S. Sudhakara Reddy, The CPI MP, lamented that the policies adopted by the Government were resulting in rapid development of some areas while depriving such benefits to others. This had to be addressed to avoid increase in unrest among a few sections.

Lok Satta National Coordinator Jayaprakash Narayan expressed concern over the "harmful" policies and said steps should be taken for making all sections partners in the development.

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