Tamil Nadu Chief
Minister Jayalalithaa went hammer and tongs at the UPA-II government, accusing
it of being “indifferent to reducing poverty and is caught up in the daily
squabbles of its constituents in merely trying to survive from day to day. It
has neither the time nor the inclination to pay attention to the problems of
the people.”
Participating in the 57th meeting of the
National Development Council (NDC), she charged that such meetings were
“turning out to be purely periodic rituals”
“To be honest,
the purpose and intention of such meetings completely eludes me. We are already
nearly three-quarters of the way into the first year of the Twelfth Plan. I
wonder whether it would be useful to comment on the contents of the 12th Plan
Document, since it is very unlikely that any such views would be taken on board.”
Accusing the Centre
of not taking into account the suggestions/views expressed by the Chief
Ministers during such meetings, she said “I had a fond hope that at least some
of the suggestions made in the last NDC meeting would find their way into the
final Plan Document.” But no reasonable and legitimate suggestion from the
States had been accepted in the draft document and the “big brotherly and
undemocratic approach of superimposing on elected State governments the dubious
policies, priorities and programmes of a minority ruling coterie in Delhi
“We get the
impression that the government at the Centre is indifferent to reducing
poverty.” Large scale poverty and inequality persists and even widens with
every Plan. The Centre, far from serving the people, was “conspiring against
them by hiking the prices of the essential commodities and inputs and appears
more focused on facilitating the interests of the foreign investors.”
She accused the
Centre of being “completely ineffective” in playing its constitutional role in
ensuring that the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal was duly
notified to protect Tamil Nadu’s rights. Besides, the UPA-II regime had also
failed in protecting the citizens - the fishermen belonging to Tamil Nadu -
from attacks across the maritime boundary (by Sri Lankan Navy).
Even a simple request
from the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation for a Digital Addressable System
(DAS) Licence for Chennai city had not been granted on totally extraneous
considerations, she said and alleged that the delay was intended to facilitate
the switching over of subscribers to a family-owned TV network.
On the severe power
shortage faced by Tamil Nadu, with the demand and supply gap being 4000 MW, she
said her repeated requests for substantial assistance for Power Sector
Investment, ceding a concessional funding window, finalising fuel supply
agreements and coal linkages, removing corridor constraints and strengthening
the evacuation of wind energy had elicited no response.
Her recent letter to
Prime Minister to allocate surplus power from the northern States to Tamil Nadu
had “elicited only a sermon on transmission constraints, negativing our
request.” Within Tamil Nadu, there were no transmission constraints. The total
power generated by the central power units in TN – 2830 MW – might be allotted
to the State. She said this is requested only as an interim arrangement for a
period of one year to meet the huge power deficit and to alleviate the hardship
faced by the people, until all the new power projects under construction in
Tamil Nadu are fully commissioned, after which, the status quo ante may be
restored.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa walks out from NDC meet:
What is NDC?:
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