Several women from Varadaiahpalem and Satyavedu mandals thronged the Spandana programme at Satyavedu mandal headquarters and made an appeal that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy should initiate the mission of total prohibition from the Sri City industrial belt spread over Chittoor, Nellore and bordering Tamil Nadu.
Presenting their appeals to Collector Narayana Bharat Gupta, the women, mostly representing the self-help groups and voluntary organisations, observed that close to 70,000 families are depending on employment in about 200 industries in the region. They lamented that a majority of the workers were addicted to liquor and neglecting their families.
Recalling that the anti-liquor movement in the 1990s had its birth at Dubagunta village of the neighbouring Nellore district, some women representatives from Varadaiahpalem observed that after three decades the poverty-ridden households in the Sri City belt were forced to think about repeating the agitation.