Vijayawada, Oct 6 :Three Telugu Desam Party MLAs from Prakasam district today strongly criticised Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy for failing to fulfill his promise to supply Veligonda water to their district farmers by 2021.

The TDP MLAs urged the Chief Minister to bring pressure at the National level in order to include the Veligonda project in the Central gazette.

If this was not done, then the farmers from Prakasam district would suffer heavily for lack of adequate water in future.

In an open letter to Mr Reddy ahead of his visit to Prakasam district, TDP MLAs Yeluri Sambasiva Rao, Dola Bala Veeranjaneya Swamy and Gottipati Ravi Kumar said that though there was plenty of water in the Nagarjunasagar reservoir, their district was not getting proper supply. All that water was flowing wastefully into the sea.

They said the Prakasam district was known for its proneness to drought and lack of water supply. Immediate steps were required to save the farmers.

The TDP MLAs asked whether it was proper on the part of the officials to give unsolicited advice to farmers to grow ID crops. They were giving such advice instead of providing water supply. It was the dream of the farmers in the Parchur assembly segment to get water from the Guntur channel extension works.

The previous TDP regime allocated Rs. 274 Crore for these works but they were cancelled under the present rule.

The Prakasam MLAs demanded that the YSRCP regime restart and complete the works of the Sangameswaram project at Paleru in order to ensure better water supply to the farmers.

The government should also take up modernisation works on the Rallapadu project. No efforts were being made to ensure remunerative prices to the farmers of subabul and jam oil.

The Chief Minister has not fulfilled his Padayatra promise to give Rs. 5,000 per tonne.

Decrying the government’s ‘indifference’, the TDP MLAs said that the tobacco farmers were passing through difficult days due to crop losses and lack of any support from the government. The fate of the paddy, maize, red gram and other crops was no different.

The Prakasam district was receiving a bad deal on all fronts, the MLAs said, adding that the YSRCP regime has driven away the Asian Pulp Paper Mills industry.

If it came up, thousands of work and job opportunities would have been created for the district youth.

The TDP MLAs further said that drought, crop losses and farmers’ suicides were more in their district.

Unless the state government gave special support, the district farmers would be unable to come out of their present crisis. It was sad that the Government was not even giving subsidy loans through the SC, BC, Minority and Kapu corporations.

The public were losing much needed support from all sides, the MLAs said.(UNI)