HYDERABAD: The State Congress leadership has asked the Government to evolve a timeframe for identifying the lands available for distribution among the landless poor to ensure that the programme is completed in two years.

Party leaders got into serious business during the two-day brainstorming session of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee that commenced here on Thursday.

Issues pertaining to land distribution, separate Statehood for Telangana and giving due importance to the cadre in the party and Government programmes took centre-stage on the first day.

Briefing reporters, APCC president K. Keshava Rao said that a majority of the participants wanted the Government to order a resurvey to identify the extent of assigned, vacant, fallow and surplus land that could be distributed to the poor.

He said 450 members — 350 delegates and 100 invitees — attended the meeting in which 19 leaders were given opportunity to speak.

The discussion was purposeful and the participants were free to speak on any subject though land related issues dominated the agenda.

Earlier, Dr. Keshava Rao, who inaugurated the meeting by hoisting the party flag, said the Government should take measures to ensure that the welfare programmes that were being launched had a "trickle down" effect for which bureaucracy and officialdom needed to be sensitised.

Coordination must

"The disconnect between the party and the Government with people starts if officials begin feeling that they are rival centres," he said.

While the party leaders could express their dissent, there was no scope for dissidence in the party.

The party workers should also focus on countering the charges of the Opposition.

AICC secretary Iqbal Singh also spoke.

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