Press Releases Archive

The Government itself has to blame if the High Court has struck down four percent reservations for Muslims in Government jobs and educational institutions.

Talking to the media, party leaders Katari Srinivasa Rao and Ishaq Khan commented that a Government, which acted in haste, would have to regret at leisure. In its eagerness to earn political mileage, the Government provided for Muslim reservations without doing its homework.

The Lok Satta leaders said that reservations to the backward among minorities would be in order so long as the total percentage did not exceed 50 percent, the ceiling fixed by the Supreme Court. A scientific study should have preceded reservations for the backward among Muslims.

The party leaders wanted the Government to ensure that the High Court verdict did not harm the interests of Muslims who had already availed themselves of reservations in education and Government jobs.

The Lok leaders pointed out that reservations are not a panacea for backwardness, since they benefited only a microscopic section. Backwardness goes only when every child irrespective of its accident of birth in a certain caste or religion gets equal opportunities to realize its potential. Every child should have access to quality education, health care, livelihood skills, and employment opportunities. By awarding ten percent grace marks in competitive examinations to rural as also urban poor students, the Government would enable them to compete with their urban counterparts.

The Lok Satta Party held the State Government and the Greater Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad squarely responsible for the collapse of a building under construction in Narayanaguda in Hyderabad.

The authorities had encouraged licentiousness in building construction by introducing a scheme to regularize unauthorized constructions for a hefty fee, said Lok Satta leaders V. Laxman Balaji, V. Vijayender Reddy, G. Rajareddy, N. Ravinder, Dr. Panduranga Rao and Dasari Ratnam.

The Lok Satta leaders, who conducted a random survey in one street in Barkatpura, noticed that seven of the eight buildings under construction were unauthorized. Taking the media round the area, the Lok Satta leaders pointed out that the Government viewed the schemes to regularize unauthorized buildings and layouts as a source of revenue. As a result, builders indulged in constructions throwing all norms to the winds since the Government would regularize them for a fee.

They recalled that the Lok Satta had consistently demanded that the concerned authorities punish officials and builders responsible for such constructions, instead of house-owners. They also pointed out that the Andhra Pradesh High Court had directed the State Government in 1997 not to regularize buildings constructed thereafter. Yet the Government continued to regularize unauthorized buildings since it was not willing to forgo revenue. They demanded that the GHMC demolish buildings,which posed a threat to occupants and punish officials and builders responsible for them.

The Lok Satta leaders conveyed their condolences to the families of those killed in the Narayanaguda building collapse.