Take steps to protect Indian fishermen: Pondy CM to Modi

There have been instances of fishermen from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry facing hardship at the hands of the Lankan Navy and Coast Guard. "Instances of fishermen of Tamil Nadu being shot at and killed, their properties seized and boats impounded during the attacks have come to cause concern," he said. 

The Prime Minister should not remain as silent spectator to these happenings, he said. Narayanasamy charged Bedi and the Union Home Ministry with deliberately delaying approval for the proposal of the territorial government to earmark 10 per cent reservation for students passing out of the government schools here and aspiring for medical education in private medical colleges. 

"We had sent our Cabinet decision to set apart 10 per cent quota for students from government schools intending to do medical education here to the Lt Governor for approval in March last year. But, the former IPS officer had deliberately delayed in taking a decision for nearly two months and sent the related file to the Centre in May," he said. He said there was no need for Bedi to send the file to the Centre. "The Centre and Bedi are playing with the lives of the students without giving the green signal to our proposal for internal quota for students from government schools in medical education," the Chief Minister said. He contended that providing internal reservation is the absolute right of the state government. 

Why should the Lt Governor and the Centre block the introduction of reservation, he asked. Narayanasamy said he and three of his cabinet colleagues-R Kamalakannan, M Kandasamy, Malladi Krishna Rao-and lone Member of Parliament from here V Vaithilingam had intended to meet President Ram Nath Kovind on January 21 to bring to his notice the unnecessary intervention by the Lt Governor in routine administration of an elected government. "We had also intended to urge the President to recall Bedi since almost all proposals of the elected government were red-flagged by her," he said. ` 

Narayanasamy said he could not meet the President as he (President) was preoccupied with the preparation of his Republic Day address and monitor other arrangements for the day. The Chief Minister said he had information that the President would meet him during the first week of February "We will meet the President next month and urge him to recall Bedi." Narayanasamy said he had met the Union Minister of State for Energy (Independent charge) R K Singh and registered the territorial government`s protest against the move of the Centre to privatise distribution of electricity here. 

The Central Minister said he would send an official team to Puducherry shortly to study the situation. "I have also categorically told the Central minister that the Centre had decided to privatise the distribution of energy arbitrarily without consulting the Puducherry government and employees unions," he said. "We will place before the Central committee during its visit the reasons as to why the move for privatisation should be dropped and status quo of power distribution through the department should continue," the Chief Minister said.