Never mind the war, Naidu comes to Naik with his agenda

In the middle of his hectic exercise of checking the oil stock reserves and laying forward a contingency plan to ensure uninterrupted supply...

In the middle of his hectic exercise of checking the oil stock reserves and laying forward a contingency plan to ensure uninterrupted supply of crude oil, the petroleum minister had a surprise visitor on Friday. It was none other than Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu who met Ram Naik with an objective to raise Rs 1.25 crore from oil companies. And no this is not meant for social work in Andhra Pradesh but to sponsor a volleyball tournament in the State.

Naidu wants oil companies, obviously through the petroleum minister, ‘to kindly extend helping hand for the official sponsors for a prestigious championship’ — the Fourth Asian Youth Boys’ Volleyball Championship Tournament which is scheduled to be held at Visakhapatnam from April 6 to April 13.

Naidu had earlier written a letter to Ram Naik seeking help for the event from the oil companies. The letter, dated March 4, 2003, offers that sponsors would get advertisements by way of ground panels in the courts, publicity material, printing on tickets etc in return for any ‘help’ which they would extend.

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Hard selling the event, Naidu’s letter also states that the ‘Championship stands in third position in Asia next to the Olympics and Asian Games. Teams from China, Japan, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, Iran, Qatar, Australia, DPR Korea and India would participate in this mega event’, the letter to Naik had stated.

Naidu began the letter by thanking Naik for his ‘continuous patronage for upliftment of sports and sports events organised in Andhra Pradesh’. Naidu’s personal visit last week to the petroleum minister discussed this sponsorship among other issues.

Other than the sponsorship, Naidu also wanted extension of the drawal schedule of gas for two power projects in Andhra Pradesh — Gautami Power Pvt Limited and Konaseema EPS Oakwell Power Limited, increasing gas supply to power projects in Andhra so that the PLF (plant load factor) for the projects could go up from the present 65-70 per cent to 85 per cent.

The Andhra Pradesh chief minister also asked Naik to direct the IOC Foundation to take up projects to maintain national heritage in the state of Andhra Pradesh.