Friday, May 14, 2010

Andhra Government following World Bank diktat: CPI (M)

Communist Party of India (Marxist) has criticised the State government for following the dictates of the World Bank in diluting welfare schemes like reimbursement of scholarships to students.

The CPI (M) said the policy decisions on cutting down allocations for welfare schemes were aimed at securing assistance from the World Bank under the AP Economic Reform Programme and not due to financial stress as was being claimed by the government. The government should elicit the views of all political parties before embarking upon policy measures that were aimed at shelving welfare schemes, CPI (M) State secretary B.V. Raghavulu said.

In an informal chat with reporters here on Thursday, Mr. Raghavulu said the weeding out of ration cards in the name of existence of bogus cards amply showed the government's keenness to implement the World Bank-dictated policies.

Asked about the reports of Justice B.N. Srikrishna panel's invitation to APCC president D. Srinivas and TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu, he said it was unfortunate that the two parties were creating confusion among the people with their inability to take a firm stand on the Telangana issue.

He faulted Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram for claiming that the solution to Telangana was lying within the State.

(Courtesy : The Hindu)