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AP assembly debates privatisation, World Bank; Naidu, Left leaders exchange barbs

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today said Communist parties "suffer from privatisation phobia''.

He made the remark during the question hour in the state legislature, when Communist Party of India members demanded withdrawal of a government order entrusting maintenance of libraries to voluntary organisations.

Naidu asked the Left parties to appreciate the good aspects of privatisation and not to raise the privatisation bogey time and again. He, however, agreed to examine their demand.

He said that even China and Russia could not escape reforms. ''You want reforms and computers in West Bengal but oppose them here''.

CPI leader P Nageswara Rao said they always supported ''positive reforms'' and not negative reforms.

Rao denied they were suffering from any phobia or blindly opposing everything.

Communist Party of India-Marxist member Jakka Venkaiah wondered why Naidu refuses to make public the conditionalities imposed by the World Bank in sanctioning the Rs 33 billion loan for Andhra Pradesh Economic Restructuring Project.

At this, Naidu again referred to China and said it had modernised Hong Kong airport and also added 18 million telephones in one year while India could add 22 million telephones in 50 years. When the government deputed an all-party delegation to China to study the impact of reforms, all went except CPI-M members, he recalled.

Rao urged the government not get into a "World Bank phobia" and pointed out that the economy in China was state-controlled and land was given to the tiller.

Naidu later said the government was ready for a discussion on the conditionalities of World Bank loans.

UNI

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