Posted: Post Date – 11:18 PM, Friday – October 28
The party’s state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar posted a charge sheet in Munugode in an attempt to counter allegations that the BJP-led centre had done nothing to help victims of fluorosis.
Nargonda: From claiming that the federal government has provided Rs 3.5 crore to help victims of fluorosis in Munugode, to saying that 5.4 million water connections have been provided in Telangana under the centre’s Jal Jeevan mandate, the Bharatiya Janata Party in its “charge sheet” has criticized the TRS ( BRS) government.
The party’s state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar released the charge sheet in Munugod on Thursday in an attempt to counter allegations that the BJP-led centre had done nothing to help victims of fluorosis. It said the Vajpayee government approved Rs 3.5 crore in 2003, which helped them tackle fluoride pollution.
However, the truth is that previous Andhra Pradesh government agencies used this amount to set up small water tanks in some of the fluorosis-affected villages, but these tanks never served their purpose as they did not have proper water supply.
Victims of fluorosis from Munugode (whose photos are used by the BJP in its bills) refute these claims themselves. They noted that after the first few years, when small amounts of water arrived in these tanks every five days, the structures remained unused.
Fluoride victim Kothapally Narsimha, a Kodandapuram from Nalgonda mandal, whose photo appears under the theme of fluorosis in the bill, said in an interview with Telangana Today that some families took a jug of water each from a water tank set up in 2003 , the same is true once every five days. Not even one day is enough for a family of four or five members. Villagers were forced to drink groundwater contaminated with fluoride for the rest of the week, he said.
In the past six years, things have changed and all the families in his village have access to sufficient safe drinking water under Bhagiratha’s mission. A photo of another fluoride victim, Amshala Swamy, who also appeared on the bill, said he saw women fighting for water in tanks more than a decade ago. Water the tank every four or five days. He asked how the BJP could claim the problem was resolved when half the village’s households didn’t have a jug of water.
The BJP also claims to have provided water connections to 5.4 million homes in the state under the centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission, when in fact these connections were provided as part of the state government’s flagship Mission Bhagiratha programme, which the centre recently acknowledged and awarded this fact.
The charge sheet also conveniently fails to mention that the centre has not given Mission Bhagiratha a single rupee, or even consider NITI Aayog’s proposal to approve Rs 19,000 crore for the project. Vikas Ratan, a member of the INTREM Foundation and advisor to the Jal Jeevan Mission 2020, said they had visited Nalgonda district to inspect Mission Bhagiratha’s water treatment plant and found that the centre had not provided any funding for the project.
