Press Releases Archive

In our obsession with the future of certain politicians, we are failing to discuss the core issues that revolve round politics, said Lok Satta Party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan here today.

"We frequently discuss how Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy's YSR Congress Party will fare in by-elections, the efforts being put in by TDP President N. Chandrababu Naidu to make his party relevant and the growing schisms within the Congress. But we are not seriously concerned about eradicating corruption, improving education and healthcare, drinking water and power supply and infrastructure."

Addressing a group of students and youth who have come forward to devote a part of their time for transforming society, Dr. JP said that people in general focused on some burning issues to get immediate relief but not on resolving them for good. "We are missing the wood for trees", he pointed out.

Dr. JP cited a number of instances to drive home his message. People are concerned about drinking water availability in summer but fail to appreciate that the nearly Rs.7000 crore – Rs.8000 crore spent under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the State has not been utilized to preserve and augment groundwater. They launch an agitation against an increase in the power tariff but ignore the grave crisis in the energy sector. A Government which could not bring down transmission and distribution losses and prevent wasteful use of electricity is now determined to execute lift irrigation schemes which cost Rs.3 lakh to Rs.4 lakh an acre. If the schemes materialize, the Government will have to spend Rs.20000 crore to Rs.25000 crore a year on their maintenance. The Government will be spending Rs.60,000 an acre under the scheme whereas the income from that piece of land does not exceed Rs.25000. In contrast, he recalled that as Prakasam District Collector he provided irrigation facility for two lakh acres by incurring an expenditure of a mere Rs.45 crore on lift irrigation schemes and bore-wells. Again in the wake of the transfer of an official probing the liquor mafia, the discussion centered on who benefited from it and not on providing autonomy to crime investigation agencies.

Dr. JP counseled the youth to focus on changing the nature of politics and bettering society. We have the technologies and resources to build a better India, he added.

The Andhra Pradesh Government has betrayed its scant respect for democracy and good governance by transferring a top official investigating the liquor mafia in the State, charged the Lok Satta Party here today.

Addressing a media conference, Lok Satta Party leaders Bandaru Ramamohan Rao and P. Bhaskara Rao said the Government effected the transfer of ACB Additional Director, K. Srinivasa Reddy, heading the Special Investigation Team, to serve ruling party interests.

Pointing out that the transfer came in the wake of a truce brokered by the Congress High Command in New Delhi between Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and State Congress President Botsa Satayanarayana, the Lok Satta leaders said it amounted to the Center blessing the State leaders to persist with their policies of loot and plunder. The transfer came at a time when people felt that at long last a battle against the liquor mafia had been launched. The liquor mafia has been ruining the lives of millions of people through unbridled sale of liquor and spurious stuff through illegal outlets.

Mr. Ramamohan Rao and Mr. Bhaskara Rao said that the Government in its bid to save the PCC President, Ministers, legislators and others facing allegations of receiving huge kickbacks from the liquor mafia has demoralized the bureaucracy. The Lok Satta Party will wage a legal battle against the transfer of Mr. Srinivasa Reddy and for grant of autonomy to the ACB.

The Lok Satta leaders recalled that the Central Bureau of Investigation had emerged by and large as an independent agency working under the supervision of the Central Vigilance Commission following a Supreme Court judgment in the Vineet Narayan case in 1997. The Supreme Court had in 2006 suggested in the Prakash Singh versus the Government of India case initiation of reforms in police administration to prevent political interference in crime investigation.

The ACB should be autonomous and work under the supervision of a strong and independent Lokayukta, they added.

The Lok Satta leaders asked why IAS and IPS officials, who had alleged witch-hunting in the wake of some CBI investigations, remained silent when a colleague of theirs had been shunted out for discharging his duty.