Yeddyurappa says will quit politics if fails to deliver

Bangalore, Sep 14 (UNI) Exuding confidence in the 100 days performance of his government, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa today asserted he would quit politics, if he failed to fulfill his promises to the people and change the face of the state in five years.

Interacting with newspersons from Delhi, Mr Yeddyurappa said the first-ever BJP government in the state has implemented 90 per cent of the election promises made to the electorate.

This included providing free power to 16 lakh irrigation pump sets, providing farm loans at three per cent interest and enhancing various social welfare measures in the latest budget.

The government has initiated measures to achieve cent per cent target by setting up Knowledge Commission headed by former Indian Space Research Chairman K Kasturi Rangan, Task Forces on Agriculture, Industry, Bangalore Infrastructure Development, Vision Group on Science and Technology with former Indian Institute of Science as the Chairman. Two Task Forces have been proposed for Quality Control and Project Monitoring and for Redressal regional Imbalance, he underlined.

The state will generate 5000 MW power in the next five years to overcome the state of shortage. A MOU has been signed with Chhattisgarh for jointly setting up 2000 MW power in that state.

The power received from Chhattisgarh would help Karnataka overcome the demand and supply gap. Things were looking up in power sector as the rains were good in the state and almost all the hydel power projects were full, the Chief Minister said.

Regretting the non-cooperation attitude of Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) parties in and outside the Legislature, he recalled how the Congress had refused to join the All Party Delegation to demand more release of fertiliser by the Centre and seek classical language status to Kannada. The Congress chose to take a separate delegation to the Prime Minister instead, he said.

Mr Yeddyurappa said in an effort to eliminate corruption at the bureaucratic levels, the government has proposed ''Jan Spandan' programme to take the administration to the Hobli levels where officials ranging from Tahsildars would be personally present to redress people's grievances from the end of this month.

The government would pursue a policy where the mining licences would be given to only those who have the capacity to provide value addition on merit. It has not given any fresh mining licences nor renewed any expired ones, he said.

The BJP in Karnataka would make all efforts to make Leader of the Opposition L K Advani to take him to driving seat after the Lok Sabha elections. The immediate task wil be to win at least 22 to 24 seats for the party out of 28 Lok Sabha cosntituencies.

The three-month-old government was stable with the support of the Independent MLAs, and some JD (S) and Congress MLAs had quit their Assembly seats to join the BJP. The functioning of the government was smooth and there was no problems within the government, he said.

On the inter-state river problems, the Chief Minister said he has proposed that the Prime Minister should convene a meeting of riparian states to discuss all outstanding issues.

He said the government has proposed to hold a Global Investors Meet in Bangalore in January seeking overseas investments in industry, power and other infrastructural projects.

UNI KAS-MCN ATI CS1238