Prakasam district, which was endowed with natural resources, remained backward as the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government meted out a “stepmotherly” treatment to it, said Progressive Democratic Front(PDF) MLCs.
None of the big ticket projects including the Donakonda industrial park and the National Manufacturing and Investment Zone(NIMZ) had seen the light of the day, said PDF floor leader in the Legislative Council Vitapu Balasubrahmanyam, at a seminar organised by the Jana Vignana Vedika on the district’s backwardness and solutions to deal with it.
‘Step up allocation’
Questioning the sincerity of the government in taking up the Ramayapatnam port project, he said it should be taken up as a major public sector project by the Centre to spur industrial growth in the State and not as a non-major port as mooted by the State government.
Following examples of Switzerland and Sweden, the State government should step up allocation for State-run educational institutions, which mainly catered to the poor including Dalits and tribals, and focus on imparting skills to them to make them employable, he said.
It was unfortunate that not a single central educational institution had come up in the district, he said, demanding that works for the promised University of Mines and Minerals in the district begin soon.
PDF MLC Y.Srinivasulu Reddy demanded the inclusion of the district as the eighth one in the list of backward districts under the State Reorganisation Act, as it was the most backward when compared to those in Rayalaseema and north-coast.
Saying that the Veligonda project progressed at a snail's pace, he added that allocation of funds should be expedited to complete it on a war footing to cater to the fluoride-affected western parts of the district.
The MLCs demanded at least two major public sector industries in the district and a State-run super-speciality hospital.
Agricultural scientist Ch.Varaprasad said the district could progress only when farmers, who constituted the majority of the population, were assured of water for crops and remunerative price for produce.
Human resource development should be the yardstick for assessing the progress of the district and not just gross domestic product (GDP), said V.Anji Reddy of the Department of Political Science, the Acharya Nagarjuna University.