Andhra Pradesh:
Frequent Cyclones and Recurring Droughts
Apathy of Central and State Governments
The never ending irony in the
lives of people of AP is that while
some districts reel under
recurring droughts, other districts
are victims are frequently struck
by cyclones. Both the state and
central governments took little
measures to change this situation,
rather they want to sustain it.
The state government
declared all most all the mandals
in Anatapoor (63/63), Chittoor
(63/66),
Prakasam(56/56),
Kadapa(51/51) and Nellore (46/
46) as drought hit. The deficit
rainfall during the South West
monsoon ranged between 47to
55 per cent. Though the scanty
rainfall was reported in the middle
of august it took two months for
the government to declare the
drought hit areas. Immediate relief
measures are yet to be take off,
while the state and central
governments are engaged in
blame game. Meanwhile people
in flocks are migrating in search
of livelihood. Many villages in
these districts wore deserted
look.
The four districts of
Rayalaseema region along with
upland areas of coastal districts
of Nellore and Prakasam are
chronically drought prone. The
upland areas of other seven
coastal districts face frequent
droughts. For nearly seven
decades since the transfer of
power, despite thousands of
crores of rupees spent on
irrigation projects, these areas
continue as chronically drought
hit. The coastal AP faces
cyclones, big and small, every
year. After the bifurcation of the
state, it was struck by cyclone
Hudhud in 2015, Pylin in 2017 and
now by cyclone Titli. On October
24
12 cyclone struck Srikakulam
district causing devastation. It
destroyed five lakh coconut trees
in 18,000 hectarres and paddy in
1.64 lakh hectares. As a
consequence of heavy rain, floods
of Vamsadhara and Bahuda rivers
inundated villages in four mandals.
The official estimate of loss is Rs.
3435 crore.
The apathy of the state
government can be understood
when the Chief Minister announced
that arrangements are made to
disburse the compensation amount
of around Rs. 40 crore to 1.17 lakh
farmers who lost their crops due to
heavy rains in last November on
October 29 this year, along with the
crop loss compensation for the
present Titli cyclone affected
farmers. The date line was
postponed to November 5. No one
knows when the compensation
would be paid to the affected
people.
The Chief Minister claimed that
he would utilize cyclone as a
opportunity to usher in
development, which he perceives
as building road parallel to coast
to promote tourism.
This
development as the past
experience proved would violate
all the rules of coastal regulatory
zone. No one can stop cyclones.
But certain measures like tree
coverage along the coast line
would subdue the intensity of
cyclones. In the name of
development all the CRZ rules
are being floated resulting more
and ore devastation when the
cyclones came.
The leading members of Rytu
Cooli Sangham (AP) visited the
cyclone
affected
areas
immediately on October 13 and
again on October 22 to take
stock of the situation. It called
upon the people to unitedly
struggle to get implemented the
short and long term measures
that give protection to the people
from cyclones.
Tamil Nadu:
Campign against the Hike in Petrol Price
The CPI(ML) in Tamil Nadu took
up propaganda campaign against
frequent escalation of prices of
petrol, diesel and cooking gas by
the government. It distributed
pamphlets and conducted public
meetings at Villupuram on 19th
October, at Varakkalpattu on22nd
October, at Cuddalore on 23rd
October, at Chidambaram on 26th
October and at Sirkali on 2nd
November. The spekers at the
public meeting made the following
demands:
- Reduce the petrol, diesel nd gas
prices!
- Rwduce the taxes imposed on
the [petroleum products!
- Oil industry should be brought
agains under the purview of
public sector indutry!
- Allthe foreign and Indian
capitalists should not be
allowed to invest in the
petroleum sector!
- Controlthe inflation and price
rise! Cancel the nuclear and
military aggrements with the US
imperialism!
- fight to end the imperialist
domination and exploitation!
Class Struggle