The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Enough water for kuruvai cultivation: Durai Murugan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 27, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Enough water for kuruvai cultivation: Durai Murugan

Special Correspondent

Government to strive for its share as per interim award of Cauvery tribunal

Durai Murugan

CHENNAI: Public Works Department Minister Durai Murugan told the Assembly on Monday that the State had enough water for the upcoming kuruvai crop.

However, the DMK government would strive to get its share as per the interim award of the Cauvery tribunal this season as the final award was yet to be notified.

He was replying to N. Eramakrishnan (Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), who wanted to know why the State was not approaching the Supreme Court on the issue though Karnataka had said that it would do so. He also sought to know why the Government was not taking steps to get the award notified.

Karnataka "confused"

Mr. Durai Murugan explained that the notification could be done only after the 90-day period set by the tribunal for anyone to approach it for any clarification. On Karnataka's moves, he said representatives of the Karnataka Government had stated, at various points of time, that they were approaching the tribunal, the Supreme Court and were also in favour of notifying the award. "They are confused. They are trying to confuse everyone else too."

Earlier, K.A. Sengottaiyan (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) wanted to know how many farmers had been given the promised two acres. O. Paneerselvem (AIADMK) contended that the scheme to give land to agricultural labourers was not new; it was being done since Independence.

Leader of the House and Finance Minister K. Anbazhagan said the basic confusion was because the earlier AIADMK regime was misled by officials into believing that there was about 20 lakh hectares of wasteland. The next issue was who should be given the wasteland available. The AIADMK government wanted to carry out upgradation work with big industrialists while the DMK Government believed it was possible for landless agricultural labourers to carry this out with help from the government. He said the available upgraded wasteland would be given only to poor, landless farmers.

"Reopen spinning mills"

N. Nanmaran (CPI-M) wanted the Government to take steps to reopen cooperative spinning mills that had remained closed, and more money for Madurai to carry out developments under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. He requested the stationing of a helicopter at Kanyakumari to locate missing fishermen and fixed hours for TASMAC employees.

Replying to N.R.Rengarajan (Congress), School Education Minister Thangam Thennarasu said in the previous years NABARD had not agreed to fund benches and desks for rural high schools and higher secondary schools. This year they had come forward to give up to Rs.20 crore.

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