Bandar Port Delay: Dharnas In Krishna

Protesting against the delay in the completion of the Bandar Port Project, hundreds of people, on Thursday, staged dharnas and rallies across the Krishna district.

Raising slogans against the government, the activists, under the aegis of the Bandar Port Sadhana Samithi, staged dharnas and rallies at Machilipatnam, Avanigadda, Pedana and Challapalli, disrupting traffic for 4 hours.

Expressing their solidarity with the bandh, commercial and business establishments downed their shutters voluntarily.

The RTC suspended nearly 200 buses, fearing violence.

Sadhana Samithi secretary D Sriramachandra Murthy and member Kollu Ravindra demanded the resignation of Machilipatnam MLA Perni Nani for his failure to honour the promise of the port construction.

They accused the MLA of not making sincere efforts towards the construction of the port, and of not using his office to prevail upon Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.

They threatened to intensify their agitation if the government does not solve the issue of land acquisition in a month's time and enable developers to launch work on the Rs. 1,590-crore project at the earliest.

A high-level committee was appointed to enquire whether it was necessary to allot 6,262 acres of land for the port, for which a foundation stone was laid in 2008. During his recent visit, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy had promised to resolve the issue.

Bandar Port Sadhana Samithi called for a staging of dharnas and rallies in the district to mark the completion of one year of the agitation. (INN)