MOBILISING FORCES: CPI (M) city leader Ch. Babu Rao addressing the dwellers of Krishna river-bund in the city on Sunday. Photo: Raju V.

VIJAYAWADA: Intensifying its agitation against alleged attempts to shift the dwellers of Krishna river-bund to far-off places, the city unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Sunday organised a public meeting in Krishnalanka.

The party is also seeking to build up pressure on the Government to ensure that the 15,000 houses that are proposed to be built under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) at Vambay Colony and Jakkampudi are allotted to the shelterless poor of the city and not to the well-settled river-bund dwellers as proposed by the district administration.

The party has called for a massive show of strength of nearly 5,000 poor people who have no pucca houses as yet, in front of the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) on Monday. The party has already collected applications for houses from all of them during the last few days, and these would be presented to the Commissioner.

Addressing the meeting organised on the premises of Amarajeevi Potti Sriramulu Municipal High School, CPI (M) floor leader in the VMC general body Ch. Babu Rao cautioned the Government that the agitation would not be stopped until Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy gave a categorical assurance against shifting the river-bund dwellers to Jakkampudi.

Party city secretary R. Raghu called upon the river-bund dwellers to remain prepared to march to Hyderabad to lay a seize Chief Minister's residence to extract an assurance about not being shifted into JNNURM houses.

He said that the CPI (M) had made an earnest attempt to take the problem of river-bund dwellers to the notice of the Chief Minister during his short stay in the city recently, but the Congress leaders remained indifferent and, instead, showed more interest in raising zindabad slogans in favour of the Chief Minister.

Mr. Raghu cautioned the gathering not to fall into the trap of officials who were showing attractive sketches of four-storey buildings to be constructed at Jakkampudi in a bid to convince them to move into the houses. The condition of single-storey houses constructed at Vambay Colony itself was pathetic, and the condition of four-storey buildings could be imagined, he said.

Asserting that there was no need to shift the river-bund dwellers into JNNURM houses, Mr. Babu Rao said that if the Government was so sincere about protecting their interests, it should raise a retaining wall along the river-bund. In the name of constructing JNNURM houses at a cost of Rs.250 crores, officials were trying to pull down nearly 10,000 houses on the river-bund, which would cost Rs.500 crores, he alleged.

Party corporator D. Kashinath presided. Corporator Korada Rammohana Rao spoke.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail