The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Publish White Paper: KPCC

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Friday, Jan 25, 2008
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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Publish White Paper: KPCC

Special Correspondent

On government land with PSUs

Deplores move to help real estate mafia
Chennithala to go on hunger strike against price rise

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Ramesh Chennithala will stage a 24-hour hunger strike here on February 5 in protest against the government’s failure to check price rise.

Congress activists will organise dharnas in the evening at the panchayat level in all districts except Thiruvananthapuram.

The KPCC president said the decision to launch the agitation was taken at a meeting of KPCC office-bearers and other leaders here on Thursday. Mr. Chennithala said the leadership meeting called upon the government to publish a White Paper on government land in the hands of Central and State public sector undertakings (PSUs). It deplored moves to allow the real estate mafia to get hold of such land in the name of private investment.

Sale opposed

The meeting protested against the sale of land by HMT Ltd. to private agencies and demanded that action should be taken against Ministers who aided the deal. The government was protecting the real estate mafia as could be seen from its failure to evict encroachers at Munnar.

The KPCC president recalled that no action had so far been taken against those who sold farmers’ land at R Block in Kuttanad to land developers. All these showed that Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan was not sincere in taking action against the land mafia.

He said the meeting expressed dissatisfaction over the tax collection and Plan implementation. While tax collection lagged behind by 50 per cent, programmes such as corruption-free Walayar, lucky VAT, sports lottery and Swanthanam had failed. In case of local self-governments, Plan fund utilisation was only 20 per cent. Objecting to the increase in milk prices, the meeting demanded that the government subsidise Milma. The government had given Rs.160 crore in subsidies to RUBCO.

The draft resolution drawn up by the CPI(M) central committee was a political gimmick. A third front had never worked in the country and the party’s move would only help communal and divisive forces, he said.

The Congress would organise meetings and demonstrations at the ward and constituency levels. These would be followed by rallies at the district level. Congress leader Mohsina Kidwai and Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy would attend the rally being organised in connection with the merger of Karunakaran group into the party.

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