Indian
Express: Vijayawada: Monday, 16 February 2015.
Activists of
the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) have decided to
use the RTI as a tool to get information from the state government on land
pooling and other issues related to capital construction, in order to create
awareness in the people.
Addressing
mediapersons at Vijayawada book festival society building here on Sunday, NCPRI
co-convener Venkatesh Nayak said that senior RTI activists are trying to
collect facts and to put them before the public, regarding land pooling and
plans of the government for capital construction by appointing two special
teams and one fact finding committee with all senior RTI activists. “Only the Singapore team, CM, ministers and a
few government officials know about the plans for capital construction and the
people are completely in the dark,” he said.
He wondered
why the government is bent on acquiring fertile land yielding multiple crops,
though the Sivaramakrishna Committee in its report had advised against acquiring
such lands.
Naik said
that if this situation continues, perhaps there are chances that people may
challenge the decision of the government in the court.
Regarding the
government’s wasteful expenditure, United Forum for RTI campaign founder convenor
B Rama Krishna claimed that on one side the government says it is facing a
financial crisis and on the other, they are spending lakhs of rupees for
meetings and crores for renovation of the secretariat.
“We are
planning a ‘Padayatra’ in the first week of March against land pooling in
Tulluru and Mangalagiri regions,” he said.
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