Tamil Nadu   

State ministry for water resources needed: PMK

Special Correspondent

PWD `should be divested of responsibility'

VILLUPURAM: The Tamil Nadu Government should create a separate Ministry for the maintenance of irrigation systems and adopt better water management practices, S. Ramadoss, founder leader of the Pattali Makkal Katchi, said.

Mr. Ramadoss was addressing a press conference at Thailapuram near here on Thursday. The Public Works Department should be divested of the responsibility of taking care of tanks, lakes, ponds, and irrigation channels, and this should be assigned to the new ministry, he said.

All irrigation sources and channels, rainwater-harvesting systems, and check dams should be brought under the purview of the new ministry.

Check dams should be built every five km along rivers, and the concept of kudi maramathu involving students, social service organisations and industrialists in the maintenance of the water sources, should be revived.

Flood damage

On the flood damage, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had simply stated a figure of Rs. 13,678 crores, without giving the specifics to the Centre.

He said Ms. Jayalalithaa should have flown to New Delhi to apprise Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the gravity of the situation.

In the absence of such a move, she should stop criticising the Centre, he said.

All party committee

He asked whether she was ready to constitute an all-party committee on the model of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee to check the tsunami accounts.

He said the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MPs had joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the constituents of the National Democratic Alliance to obstruct Parliamentary proceedings, thus disallowing the House to discuss the flood situation in Tamil Nadu.

He accused the State Government of keeping the issue of entrance examinations to professional courses in "cold storage," thereby doing an injustice to the socially and economically backward students, who constituted 90 per cent of the population.

The PMK students' wing would stage a demonstration against this in Chennai soon.

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