Dravidian parties responsible for drought, says Anbumani

Recalling Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisamy’s statement that Mettur dam was being desilted after 82 years, he said that this clearly showed that his predecessor J Jayalalithaa, who was in power from 1991, too had failed to desilt the dam. “Due to the voluminous silt, the Mettur dam’s storage capacity has shrunk to 60 tmc against its original capacity of 93.5 tmc,” he said. 

The Dharmapuri MP said that both the Dravidian majors have also failed to increase the capacity of existing water bodies and to create new storage facilities.

“Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have constructed over 50 big-sized check dams across the Palar that runs for only 126 km in those states. The Andhra Pradesh government is trying to build a few more check dams in the 33-km stretch of the river in its jurisdiction. But, there is only one check dam across the river that flows through Tamil Nadu for a stretch of 222 km,” he said and rued, “Sadly, that check dam also was built by the British.”

Moreover, in sharp contrast, the number of lakes and tanks in the state has come down to 37,000 from 42,000, he said and added, “The number of monsoon days too have shrunk from 42 days a few years ago to 34 days in the recent times. But, the amount of rainfall received has increased from 850 mm to 950 mm. We don’t have the required storage facilities, due to which the water is getting drained into the Bay of Bengal.” Reiterating the utility of his proposed project of creating 20 major excess water utilities for the state at an outlay of Rs 40,000 crore, he said that these schemes were possible as the funds required were much less than the sum of Rs 62,000 crore spent on distributing freebies by the ruling party to recapture power. 

Speaking on the NEET issue, the PMK leader said, “There will be a revolt when results are published, as the CBSE students will corner over 3,000 of the 3,400 MBBS seats in the state.” 

Alleging that corruption was rampant from VAOs to ministers in the state government, he said, “The Chief Minister is unable to initiate action against corrupt ministers as they threaten to withdraw support. The government is also keen on relocating the 3,321 TASMAC outlets that were closed following the Supreme Court direction, based on our party’s initiative,” he said. 

Condemning assaults and false cases registered by the police against public protesting the relocation of TASMAC outlets, he said that the PMK would soon move the court over this issue. He also condemned the detention of May 17 Movement’s convener Thirumurugan Gandhi under Goondas Act.