Lok Satta Party demands constitutional status to Telangana

Hyderabad, June 2 (UNI) National Coordinator of the Lok Satta Party Dr Jayaprakash Narayan today demanded that constitutional status be provided to 'The Telangana Regional Development Boards'.

Addressing newspersons here, Dr Jayaprakash pointed out that the recently constituted Regional Development Boards did not enjoy any constitutional status of 'Article 371 D' and demanded amendment to provide constitutional status, powers and resources.

In fact, the Telangana Regional Development Board could be entrusted with the implementation of government order 'N 610' in letter and spirit, he said.

Dr Jayaprakash said neither the Congress nor the Telugu Desam party (TDP) Government had the political will to implement the GO issued as early as in 1985, the Congress was in power between 1989 and 1994 and again since 2004, while the TDP was in power during the other periods. The GO involved the repatriation of just 28,000 of the 9.5 lakh government employees from Telangana to Andhra.

Referring to regional disputes on the sharing of the Krishna and the Godavari river waters, Dr Jayaprakash said the next river waters tribunal should go into allocation of among different regions within the state.

He said the Godavari and the Krishna should be treated as one basin since the Krishna waters cannot be diverted to Rayalaseema region unless the Godavari waters are diverted to the Krishna basin downstream.

UNI