Urban News

Source : The Hindu Date : 15.06.2009

Samiti team for Delhi to seek amendment to Article 371

Special Correspondent

GULBARGA: The Hyderabad Karnataka Horata Samiti on Sunday decided to lead a delegation of the leaders of the region to New Delhi during the next Parliament session to renew its demand for amendment of Article 371 of the Constitution to provide special reservation for the people of the region in employment and educational opportunities.

The executive committee meeting of the samiti, in which its representatives from Gulbarga, Bidar, Raichur and Koppal districts participated, decided to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Union Ministers from Karnataka, and MPs from the State to plead for the early amendment of the Article 371.

Samiti president and former Minister Vaijnath Patil told presspersons that the meeting unanimously elected senior leader of the region and freedom fighter Bheemanna Khandre as the honorary president of the samiti in place of the late Vishwanath Reddy Mudnal.

Memorandum

Mr. Patil said the meeting decided to meet Union Labour Minister M. Mallikarjun Kharge and the former Chief Minister and Bidar MP N. Dharam Singh in Gulbarga during their visit to the city on June 20 and present a memorandum seeking their personal intervention in the matter and persuade the Union Government to concede the demand for amendment of Article 371.

He said that the samiti would meet Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa during his visit to the city on June 19 to participate in the Vikas Sankalp Yatra and present a memorandum seeking his intervention to bring pressure on the Union Government on the issue.

‘We are confident’

Mr. Patil said: “We are confident that the UPA Government at the Centre will amend Article 371 before November 1 this year and fulfil the long-pending demand of the region”.

During the election tour in Gulbarga, AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi had broached on the subject and promised that Article 371 would be amended if UPA returned to power at the Centre.

Mr Patil said that the representatives from other districts wanted the samiti to revive its demand for a separate statehood as they had no hopes of the Centre conceding the demand for amendment to Article 371.

Source : The Hindu Date : 14.06.2009

Water released to Masula and Pedana

Special Correspondent

— PHOTO: CH. VIJAYA BHASKAR

MLAs Malladi Vishnu,Jogi Ramesh, DY Das and ZP Chairman K Nageswara Rao helping Minister for Animal Husbandry K Parthasarodhy (third from left) manually releasing water into the Krishna Eastran Main Canal in Vijayawada on Saturday.

VIJAYAWADA: Minister for Animal Husbandry K. Parthasarodhy flipped the switch to open the shutters of the Krishna Eastern Main Canal head sluice to release drinking water for Machilipatnam and Pedana municipalities on Saturday.

About 70 cusecs of water was released into the Krishna Eastern Main Canal in accordance with the resolution of the Irrigation Advisory Board last week. Though the resolution said that drinking water should be released from Prakasam Barrage on June 15 the release was advanced after the issue became a topic of hot debate in the Zilla Parishad general body meeting held in Machilipatnam on Friday. Machilipatnam and Pedana MLAs reportedly insisted that the water be released in such away that it was available to the people on June 15.

Though officials of the Vijayawada Irrigation Circle preferred that the water be released on Friday night the programme was postponed to this morning.

The irrigation authorities said that 2,000 cusecs would be released from Nagarjuna Sagar to begin with and then the discharge would be reduced to 300 cusecs in preparation for the release of water for drinking purposes on June 15 and for the khariff season on June 20.

While the level of water in Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam is close to the Dead Storage Level the Irrigation authorities are hoping that the monsoon will become active over the catchment area and the reservoirs would be filled this week itself.

The Minister said that he was hopeful that the monsoon would become active and the agricultural activity would not be delayed. In charge superintending engineer Sankara Rao and other officials of the irrigation were present.