Tamil Nadu   

Why no rice schemes while in power, asks Vijayakant

Special Correspondent

VELLORE : Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam founder Vijayakant claimed that the DMK's Rs.2-a-kg and the AIADMK's 10 kg free assurances stemmed from his promise to deliver ration at the doorstep.

Introducing DMDK candidates for 12 Vellore Assembly constituencies at the fort maidan here on Tuesday night, Mr.Vijayakant wanted to know why the DMK did not supply PDS rice at Rs.2 a kg and the AIADMK 10 kg free when in power.

He said that if his party were elected to power, he would tap solar energy for desalination of seawater and generation of electricity. Though both the DMK and the AIADMK were in power alternatively for long, they have neither tapped solar energy nor undertaken desalination of seawater. Both the Central and Tamil Nadu Governments have done nothing in respect of the desalination project for Chennai.

Promising to grant Rs.25 lakh to each village, he said if the DMK and AIADMK had done this when in power, the villages would have improved.

Mr. Vijayakant promised to take up cultivation of `kattamanacku' (Jatropha) on wastelands and start a factory for every five villages for extraction. . Besides savings on diesel, the production would provide youth employment. His other promises included setting up of industrial centres to impart vocational skills to youth, facilitating them to obtain bank loans to set up industrial units, obtaining part-time jobs for students to enable them to earn while they learn, extending free bus passes to college students, obtaining railway passes to the students by paying money to the railway ministry, imparting quality education in government schools on par with the private schools, toilets for women in the villages and old age homes in each district.

He said that if all the above schemes were implemented, they would generate employment for 1.80 crore people in the next five years.

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