Centre telling cock & bull stories on Kadapa steel plant: Sujana Chowdary

Amaravati: Exposing Central government’s failure in establishing steel factory in Kadapa district, former Union Minister and TDP Rajya Sabha member YS Chowdary on Saturday said that they were misleading public by feeding them with cock and bull stories.

Speaking to media persons at Vijayawada, the former Union minister said that the claim of the Centre that the state had not submitted required documents pertaining to supply of coal was a tissue of lies.  He said that the State government has submitted all the details on the iron ore deposits and related information to the Minister of Steel several times in the past.

The TDP leader said that despite submission of all the details, the BJP government was willfully delaying the project. He further explained that the TDP MPs last week submitted a memorandum to Union Minister of Steel Chaudary Birender Singh, with details about the steel plant. He said that when the TDP delegation demanded Chaudary to announce the Centre's commitment to establish the plant in the state within five or six days, the Union Minister had said he had problems to make such an announcement. 

This only showed that the minister had no powers and that he would act only under the direction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said that since the Centre was saying that the state had not submitted documents necessary for setting up the steel plant, he would, however, submit them again on Monday. The Centre's argument that Mecon, public sector consultancy, did not get complete details was false. 

He said that TDP MPs, when they called on the Steel Minister, had explained to him that the State government has been communicating that sufficient iron ore was available for use by the proposed steel plant for a period of thirty years. He questioned if Mecon did not submit required reports to the Ministry, then who should take responsibility? Mecon was one of the institutions functioning under Union Steel Ministry and they have to ask them, he said.