Wednesday, Apr 02, 2003
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Tamil Nadu
By Our Special Correspondent
Intervening in the budget discussions, J. Hemachandran (CPI-M) said the root cause of the State not being able to provide free power to needy sections and all farmers was the Union Government's proposed Electricity Bill. As the ruling and Opposition traded charges, he wanted to know whether the AIADMK would support or oppose the Bill. There was no answer from the Treasury Benches. Instead, the Electricity Minister, Nainar Nagendran, posed a counter question: What would be the stand of the DMK and the PMK ? Both the parties too did not reply. While the debate on free power raged, the Congress leader, S.R. Balasubramaniam, had a query: Would a collective of small farmers owning land in excess of what was permitted by the Government be listed as a big farmer? Would societies formed with government support also come under this definition? The Finance Minister, C. Ponnaiyan, who intervened, initially said they would not be exempted, but later said the issue would be looked into. Mr. Nagendran said the issue was already brought to his notice and it was being considered. Mr. Durai Murugan (DMK) accused the State Government of not keeping its electoral promises to any section and of drawing up a budget based on World Bank dictates. Churning out statistics, he sought to prove that the DMK Government was better than the AIADMK regime in getting funds from the Centre and in additional resource mobilisation. Contesting this claim, Mr. Ponnaiyan presented a new set of percentages which showed the previous DMK Government in a poor light. Mr. Durai Murugan had the last word in the exchange: the Finance Minister was reading out statistics supplied to him. Similarly, he was reading out statistics in his possession. With another set of statistics, Mr. Durai Murugan sought to prove that the Government's claim that 94 per cent of the State's revenue went towards payment of staff salaries and pensions was wrong. According to his calculations, government employees took up only 58.64 per cent. He wanted to know whether the Ministers and the Chief Minister referred to the total State revenue or only the State Other Tax Revenue. The Finance Minister should explain which of the percentages put out was right — 94 per cent or 96 per cent given earlier. He said the Government had included salaries and perks of Ministers, bureaucrats and the police, apart from grants to aided schools and universities in this. Mr. Durai Murugan claimed that had his party continued in power, it would have implemented pay commission recommendations fully. Ms. Jayalalithaa pointed out that Tamil Nadu was the State with the largest number of government employees and experts had termed the expenditure on salaries and pension ``unsustainable.'' The DMK leader also raised the move to demolish the Queen Marys College here for construction of a new Secretariat complex. The Treasury Benches did not respond yet again. The PMK leader, G.K. Mani, wanted to know how the neighbouring Kerala and Karnataka were able to register acceptable growth rates and maintain a reasonably vibrant economy, while Tamil Nadu could not.
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