Rs 1000 crores sought by TN for irrigation infrastructure now
Posted on: 22/Jun/2019 9:56:27 AM
To increase the irrigation structures in the drought prone areas in TN to address agrarian crisis, deputy chief minister, Mr. O. Paneerselvem or OPS urged the centre on Friday, 21st June 2019, to provide special assistance package of Rs 1000 crores to Tamil Nadu. This amount was sought under the PMKSY or Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchati Yojana. It is well known that similar allocation was made to the state of Maharashtra in the past. The deputy chief minister of TN, Mr. O. Paneerselvam was participating in the pre-budget meeting of the state finance ministers and the meeting was chaired by the union finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman.
Important information is Mr. Paneerselvam also requested the centre to consider allotting funds in the upcoming union budget for Rs 17600 crores scheme to modernize the Grand Anaicut canal system for augmentation of irrigation systems in the Cauvery basin. It is known that TN had already submitted DPR for the project.
Launching people’s movement with a special programme for involving public in large scale to create RWH structures and rejuvenate water bodies so that drought prone states like TN would be benefited was also suggested by the deputy chief minister of TN. Mr. O. Paneerselvem later thanked the union government for expressing its commitment to implement Godavari- Cauvery inter-linkage project and he also wanted the union government to take up this project on priority basis and requested necessary budgetary allocations to start works.
For strengthening drinking water supply systems, the support of the union government is very important. Mr. O. Paneerselvam later threw light on how in the recent times allocation for the centrally sponsored schemes such as National Rural Drinking Water Programme has been reduced. Finally he explained about how to sustainably improve the drinking water supply in the rural places.
The deputy chief minister of TN was happy regarding the centre for introducing new assured income support scheme PM-KISAN or Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi for small and marginal farmers. This scheme has been extended to all farmers by providing Rs 6000 per annum. He wanted further increase of the minimum income for the sake of poor farmers and wanted the agricultural labourer’s to be considered under the scheme also.
It must be noted that in the past the TN state had requested centre for providing additional allocation of Rs 6000 crores under PMAY (Gramin) to build 2 lakh additional climate resilient houses to replace damaged huts for poor families affected by cyclone Gaja. The deputy chief minister reminded about this to the centre in the meeting. It is worthy to note that Mr. O. Paneerselvam also sought a special ad-hoc grant of Rs 2000 crores per annum to TN that was worst affected by the 14th Finance Commission corporations.
