Harsh summer ahead, where are the steps ?

Last year both the Telugu-speaking states accounted for over 2000 deaths, the highest in the entire country, due to heat wave conditions and majority of these casualties were of poor working people eking out their livelihood from hard labour.

A Public Interest Litigation was filed before the High Court at Hyderabad seeking directions to both the governments to come out with concrete action plans to prevent such deaths. Hearing the petition on Monday, the division bench of the High Court at Hyderabad comprising Acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice P Naveen Rao remarked that the coming summer season is going to be very harsh in terms of heat wave as per reports and enquired with the Counsels of both the governments what steps they are going to take to prevent such huge loss of lives.

Telangana Special Government Pleader Sharat placed before the bench the Action Plan prepared by the government to deal with the situation. The Andhra Pradesh government was also directed to submit its plan of action by the next hearing two weeks later.