The Hindu : AIADMK will press for 69 p.c. quota in education

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 07, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

AIADMK will press for 69 p.c. quota in education

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, MARCH 6. The All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) will urge the Centre to amend the Constitution to ensure 69 per cent reservation in education for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes and denotified communities, and will take steps to achieve 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament.

In its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections released today, the AIADMK said that when it was part of the Union Government in 1998, the national agenda for governance included an assurance that the 69 per cent reservation in educational institutions would be accorded constitutional protection. However, after the change in Government in 1999, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Pattali Makkal Katchi did not take any effort to amend the Constitution, the manifesto alleged.

An AIADMK release said the party general secretary, Jayalalithaa, released the 38-page manifesto and handed over the first copy to the presidium chairman, C. Ponnaiyan.

The party said it would urge the Centre to amend the Constitution to enable State Governments to implement their policies in the true federal spirit, without their rights being encroached upon in anyway. It would ask the Centre to work out a suitable approach for the Finance Commission, enabling it to allot more funds from the Central pool to the States by raising the share of the States from 29.5 to 50 per cent.

The AIADMK would urge the Centre to rehabilitate and revive units which were sick and shut down in the textile and heavy industries sectors to protect the workers. It would impress on the Centre the need to expedite the Neyveli second mine expansion project and expansion of the thermal station.

The party would ask the new Union Government to ensure full compensation to farmers affected by drought, cyclones and floods. It would ``strongly urge the next Union Government to expeditiously take measures to release Tamil Nadu's rightful share of Cauvery water from Karnataka.''

The AIADMK said it would push for nationalisation and interlinking of rivers. As a first step, it suggested that Mahanadhi-Cauvery interlinking be taken up.

The party would push for making all 22 languages, including Tamil, official languages of the Union Government and wanted the classical language status accorded to Tamil. The AIADMK said it believed that the majority community should live in harmony with the minority communities.

The AIADMK would also impress upon the Union Government to take up special schemes for extending welfare and social security measures to agricultural workers, auto-taxi drivers, washermen, barbers, cobblers, tree-climbers, daily-wage workers, construction workers, domestic servants and masons. It would push for withdrawal of taxes on yarn and also insist that the Centre give up the policy of exporting cotton, which led to an increase in yarn prices.

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