BJP Govt Not Ready to Accede to Tamil Nadu’s Demands: Stalin
Members of the fishing community were always free to drop in at the State Secretariat and meet the Chief Minister to convey their demands to the government, he said
Chennai: The Union BJP government was turning a deaf ear to every demand placed by the State government, Chief Minister M K Stalin alleged and pointed to the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, coming all the way to Rameswaram recently but returning home without having a meeting with the members of the fishing community.
Members of the fishing community were always free to drop in at the State Secretariat and meet the Chief Minister to convey their demands to the government, he said, addressing a ‘World Fisheries Day’ event titled ‘Coastal Peace and Growth’ at Colachel in Kanyakumari district on Friday through video conference from Chennai.
In the face of the Union Government’s deep-seated apathy , the State government was doing its mite for the benefit of the Fishing community, with whom he had a relationship that ran deep like the oceans they ventured into, Stalin said.
The government was very much in touch with the community, heeding to their grievances on a regular basis, he said listing out the various schemes that the DMK government had launched for the fisher folks. It was in fact quite a long list like the government’s welfare schemes itself, he said.
Recalling the 2023 conference of fishing community people at Mandapam in Ramanathapuram district, he said in the massive meeting welfare scheme benefits were disbursed to 14,000 people.
Passing a resolution in the Assembly demanding the retrieval of Katchatheevu from Sri Lanka and writing to the Union Government to release Rs 350 crore for the development of the Colachel harbor were some of measures taken with the community’s welfare in mind, he said and added that he planned to come up with more schemes for their benefit after the DMK formed its Dravidian Model 2.0 rule next year.
Urging the people to maintain the cordial relationship with the DMK, he said the party would strive for putting an end to the woes of the fishermen who were being attack by the Sri Lankan Navy, ensure the higher education of the children for fishermen to facilitate their career growth and enable the people to succeed in life by embarking on programmes relating to value-added products.
In his message for World Fisheries Day, Stalin said that as a friend of the fishing community, the DMK government to accede to all their demands like it had done in the past like the fishermen’s welfare conference, increased relief during the fishing ban season, more subsidy for diesel quota, financial assistance and construction of fishing harbours, fish landing centre and trawl curves.