AP govt takes land issue to Oppn turf

The YS Rajashekhar Reddy-led Congress government in Andhra Pradesh is planning a "land for the landless" drive to blunt a campaign by the Opposition parties and a major Telugu newspaper that it is anti-poor.

The government is still recovering from the recent 10-day winter session of the Assembly which saw an informal front of the Telugu Desam Party(TDP), CPI(M), BJP and Telangana Rashtra Sangh target it on various issues, including the land owned by the chief minister's family.

The Congress tried to establish that illegal possession of land was the main issue. The Opposition neutralised this by highlighting Reddy's decision to surrender the land in possession of his family in violation of the Agriculture Land Ceiling Act.

The chief minister's further disclosure that his family was in possession of another 1,000 acres took the sheen off the moral high ground sought by his voluntary disclosure and surrender of some land.

The mood was so charged that it appeared battle lines had been drawn between the ruling party and the opposition for the 2009 general elections.

The suspension of TDP members on the last day of the session reinforced the impression that the government was avoiding the party's participation in a particular debate.

After a long gap, the issue of land has assumed a political dimension in Andhra Pradesh, where the Left had stopped even its token protests over the surplus land issue when Chandrababu Naidu came to power.

According to political analysts, the Opposition has sensed a level of disillusionment with the YSR government. Just years ago, his administration had chosen to focus on irrigation and agriculture, leaving other aspects of governance to the bureaucratic machinery. But it has fallen short of the benchmarks it had set.

On irrigation, though work on 41 projects worth Rs 36, 000 crore, out of 46 irrigation projects listed for completion, got under way, so far only 18 lakh acres had been stabilised, sources said. More than 71 lakh acres was envisaged for stabilisation.

This year, water was released under nine projects as against the targeted 17 projects. Dut to a huge gap in estimates and actual costs, the state government is now harping more on budgetary commitments rather than the completion of the projects

The chief minister recently told irrigation officials that the government would keep its promise of providing a budgetary support of Rs 46,000 crore for the irrigation sector during its five-year term by allocating Rs 13,000 crore each in the remaining two years.

This means several of these projects will remain incomplete as they require close to Rs 99,000 crore.