No discrimination in project approvals, says Stalin
Chennai: The State showed no discrimination in taking up development projects identified by the Members of the Legislative Assembly though when members propose unviable projects they were asked to come up with alternative schemes as the original cone could not be implemented, Chief Minister M K Stalin said on Tuesday.
Replying to the Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami, who said that even the alternative proposals were being rejected as unviable, Stalin said every member was requested to identify 10 priority development projects in their constituency that needed implementation under the 'Chief Minister in Your Constituency' scheme.
All viable proposals were taken up for consideration irrespective of the party affiliation of the MLAs and the PWD Minister E V Velu had clarified on it, he said adding that since the Leader of the Opposition had spoken on it he had to categorically inform the House that no discrimination on the basis of parties was shown for the implementation of projects.
On Palaniswami’s complaint about school buildings, he clarified that that work was undertaken by the School Education department and not the PWD and that he did not deny that even alternative proposals were found to be unviable by the officials scrutinizing them.
All viable schemes if there were adequate funds were implemented by the government without bias and the progress of the department was monitored by him personally by holding review meetings every two months and hence there was no scope for any political discrimination, he said.
Speaking on the scheme to implement 10 projects identified by the MLAs, Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin told the Assembly that 2,437 proposals were received by the government through the district collectors and 1,253 of them had been implemented at a cost of Rs 14,466 crore in the last two years under various plans.
The deputy chief minister said that when the Chief Minister in Your Constituency scheme was announced by the Chief Minister in the Assembly, the fund earmarked for that was just Rs 1000 crore but in the past two years Rs 14,466 crore had been spent on it.
Referring to the 10 proposals submitted by the Leader of the Opposition under the scheme, Udhayanidhi Stalin said five of them were found to be unviable and one was under consideration. Of the remaining four, three had been completed and one was in the process of implementation.
