KADAPA: Left parties will launch agitation against the move to set up special economic zones, extensive concessions offered to them and their adverse impact on labour rights, CPI State Secretariat member T. Lakshminarayana said here on Tuesday.

He opposed the Government's move to set up 27 SEZs, including 13 in Ranga Reddy district. Labour laws would not hold good in SEZs, he lamented. The Government was planning to allot large extents of farmland for SEZs and promised all sorts of tax concessions for five years, he alleged.

Recalling corporate farming mooted by former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, he charged the Congress Government with bowing to World Bank conditions. The CPI and the CPI(M) would meet at Hyderabad on November 16 to chalk out an agitational course, he said.

As Rajasekhara Reddy Government agreed to implement the third phase of reforms, the World Bank had promised a loan of Rs. 4,500 crores including Rs. 1,000 crores for administrative reforms, Mr. Lakshminarayana stated.

He asked the Government to put the World Bank conditions for discussion in the Legislative Assembly. He also flayed allotment of hundreds of acres of land to multi-national companies.

Arrest condemned

Condemning the arrest and remanding of CPI State secretary K. Narayana and leader K. Nageswara Rao, Mr. Lakshminarayana asserted that agitation against usurping of lands could not be stopped by such actions. The Government was letting loose police against protesters, he alleged. The ordnance issued for takeover of all encroached lands did not contain any clause promising distribution of land to the poor, he contended.

CPI district secretary G. Obulesu decried the move to hike taxes in corporations and municipalities. Basic infrastructure had not improved, he said and warned of agitation involving taxpayers.

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