Andhra Pradesh - Anantapur   

Dharna against sand mining in Penna

Sandy issue: TDP leader P. Nagi Reddy speaking at the protest programme in Anantapur on Friday.

ANANTAPUR: The all-party ‘Penna Nadi Parirakshana Committee’ (Penna River Protection Committee) staged a dharna in front of the RDO’s office here on Friday demanding cancellation of tenders for sand excavation on the bed of the Penna river along the villages, in Pedda Vaduguru and Singanamala mandals in the district.

Illegal exploitation of sand from the beds of water sources like river, rivulets and streams in the district have long created a groundwater crisis, leaders of the committee said.

Farmers of several villages along the course of Penna river in the two mandals also participated in the protest.

They pointed out that most of the farmers on the either side of the river in the two mandals were engaged in horticulture by investing huge amounts.

They said, the water sources, borewells, would face the threat of getting defunct if the sand on the river bed was exploited indiscriminately for commercial purpose. Former TDP MPs K. Srinivasulu and B. K. Parthasarthi, Peram Nagi Reddy and Umeshchandra Reddy (TDP), A. Katamaiah (CPI), Siva Reddy (CPI-M), Laithkumar (BJP), Nagabhushana (BSP), T. Amarnath Reddy and others alleged that the Government had finalised tenders pertaining to sand excavation on the river bed in October 2007, even as a case on the issue was pending in the court.

They demanded immediate cancellation of sand tenders to protect the command area farmers of the Penna river in the district saying that the ruling party was bent upon ruining the limited, depleted water resources in the district with commercial sand excavation of the Penna river bed.

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Dharna against sand mining in Penna

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