AP govt violating NGT orders on bauxite mining

Mangalagiri: Former Minister and TDP politburo member Nakka Anand Babu on Friday strongly criticised the Jagan Mohan Reddy government for not stopping the illegal bauxite mining in the Visakhapatnam Agency areas despite the orders of the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

He termed it as 'helplessness of the constitutional institutions' in AP that the YSRCP regime was not at all caring about the orders of the High Court and even the Supreme Court. The NGT had issued strong orders for a probe but still the Jagan Reddy regime is continuing bauxite mining in the name of illegal permissions taken for laterite in the scheduled areas.

Addressing a press conference here, the TDP leader said that the overall constitutional institutions have collapsed in the State of AP and the mafia is getting away with all their illegal activities. The TDP is going to complain to the Chief Conservator of Forests against the illegal gravel mining in the Kondapalli reserve forests. The forest officers should come forward and protect the forest wealth from the gangsters.

Anand Babu asserted that on its part, the Telugu Desam Party would continue its struggle till the unchecked looting of the natural wealth in the Kondapalli forests would come to an end. The forest officers should take immediate action based on the TDP letter. Nobody would be afraid if the government filed false cases and made fake arrests of former Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and other leaders.

The TDP leader pointed out that the ruling YSRCP has been harassing and targetting the opposition leaders in the past 26 months but nobody is afraid and they were continuing their agitations relentlessly. One Maridayya belonging to Vizag complained to the NGT that Rs. 15,000 cr mineral wealth was being looted in the Visakha Agency. The NGT has set up a commission to inquire into the matter. However, the illegal mining has not stopped.

Anand Babu deplored that the mineral wealth from all over the State was being looted and shifted to Kadapa. Hundreds of lorries are transporting these minerals every day. The AP government is using the night time curfew only to carry out these illegal activities. It was in the regime of corruption-tainted YSR that the plundering of the Kondapalli forests began. They have tampered with revenue records and changed the classification of forest lands.

The TDP leader said that during the YSR regime, the unprincipled officials used a fabricated survey number 143 and got it included in the revenue records with ink. This was done to reclassify 216.25 forest lands of Kondapalli forests as revenue lands. In this bogus S.No 143, the YSR regime permitted mining to pass on benefits to its followers. This looting was stopped afterwards but the YSRCP rule once again restarted this illegal mining which posed a huge ecological threat in the area.