Industries Minister Mekapati Gautam Reddy flays Pawan Kalyan for making baseless allegations

Nellore: Minister for Industries and IT Mekapati Gautam Reddy criticised that Jana Sena chief K Pawan Kalyan has been falsely accusing the government over Divis Laboratories and said that he has been making comments without any knowledge on the subject.

He addressed the media in the city on Sunday and informed that the job opportunities for locals have increased as soon as the YSR congress government came to power in the State as 75 pc of the quota has been allocated to the locals after a law was introduced in 2019.

He said that the first preference would be given to those (families) who have given land for industries in the respective villages, second preference will be to those in the mandal and the last preference to those belonging to the same district.

He also pointed out that the State government was providing courses on skill development to the local jobless youth to enable them to grab the employment opportunities. He said that Pawan Kalyan has been speaking without basic understanding and was misleading the youth.

The Minister said that the previous TDP government had given permission for the establishment of Divis laboratories in 2015 and Pawan Kalyan is the one associated with the TDP during that time. The Minister questioned why Pawan did not go against the TDP government in the past if he thought that the setting up of Divis Pharma unit was against the wishes of local people.

The State government had clearly directed the management of Divis, not to proceed further without resolving the local issues, and said that the government had constituted a committee with experts from both industries and fisheries department.

Gautam Reddy said that Pawan should write to State Election Commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh to stop the elections to local bodies if he is really sincere about the lives of the people, as the local body polls disrupt Covid-19 vaccination and could lead to the spread of coronavirus.