Ooty: Former Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, visited Ooty last in 1997 when he inaugurated the flower show at the Government Botanical Gardens (GBG) on May 10 that year. During his address there, he astonished the packed audience when he spelled out the names of 100 ancient flowers which had mentions in ancient Tamil literature.
In 2004, he visited Kotagiri and stayed in a private estate bungalow there for a week to pen the screen play for the movie “Kannamma”. During that visit he also drove to Dodabetta peak on the outskirts of Ooty. Back in power in 2006 and for the first time in history, he gave a ministerial berth in his cabinet to a Badaga community man by making K. Ramachandran, then MLA of Gudalur, minister.
On the wildlife and nature conservation front, he made a silent, yet inerasable contribution, as his government gave the nod for converting the erstwhile Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary into the Mudumali Tiger Reserve (MR) in 2008 and standing along with environmentalists to say a firm “No” to the proposed neutrino project on the Singara slopes along the MTR border.
Karunanidhi’s government stood with environmentalists for establishing the Segur Valley elephant corridor. Mr. Karunanidhi was instrumental in improving the arboretum here and enhancing the ambience of Ooty lake by making a walkers pathway on its southern edge.
On the horticulture front his regime paved the way for establishing the spices park in Gudalur and the Katteri park at Katteri junction along the Ooty-Coimbatore NH. During his rule, the vegetable show came into existence in Kotagiri from 2008, the flower show in Ooty was made a three-day affair and the fruit show in Coonoor became a two-day affair from 2009. During his regime in 1996-2001, the HADP open air stadium here witnessed improvement works to match strides with modern standards.
