CHENNAI: Slamming Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami for calling the grievance redressing mechanism of their government as a publicity stunt, State finance minister Thangam Thennarasu on Wednesday said that the frustrated LoP was uttering blatant lies to somehow defame the DMK regime.
In a statistics loaded statement issued in this regard, minister Thennarasu said that it was the previous AIADMK regime which ran a complete publicity government by naming grievance redressing schemes on a daily basis like the Amma Call Centre, fishermen grievance redressing day and monthly and weekly grievance redressing days. “As if it were not enough, the EPS regime launched a CM’s Special Grievance Redressing Scheme on August 19, 2019. Did it work effectively? No! Palaniswami followed it up by announcing a Rs 12.78 crore digital grievance redressing scheme by proposing to coordinate all grievance redressing schemes. So, it meant no grievance redressing mechanism was put in place till then,” remarked Thennarasu.
Referring to the Amma Call Centre scheme announced by former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for redressing grievances round the clock in 2016, the minister said that the call centre had received 3.43 lakh calls in 2018 and reduced to 2.51 lakh calls in 2019, suggesting poor response for the scheme.
Remarking that the major grievance of the people in the previous AIADMK regime was EPS and his ministers, the CM said that the Dravidian model regime spared the people from them and resolved their grievances. Pointing out that about 783 projects worth Rs 10,946 crore were sanctioned and about 335 projects were implemented under Ungal Thoguthiyil Muthalamaichar scheme, Thennarasu said that in the year 2024-25 alone, about 468 works worth Rs 3,496 crore were sanctioned. About Rs 14.42 crore worth 1,251 crore projects are being executed as on date, he added. Till March 2025, about 225 camps were conducted and 1.09 lakh petitions were received and 80,000 of them were resolved under Makkaludan Muthalvar scheme, Thennarasu said, and added that unable to show any such achievement of his tenure, it is pitiable that he is bluffing out of frustration.