Farmers of the Melur region are in an upbeat mood after the Supreme Court upheld the Madras High Court order, appointing the former Madurai Collector, U. Sagayam, to probe the granite and sand quarrying scam in the State.
They feel Mr. Sagayam, who blew the lid off the multi-crore granite scam in the district, will be able to unearth more irregularities which he could not do because of his transfer two years ago.
Though his successor, Anshul Mishra, took the probe in the right direction, much more has to be done to take the case to its logical conclusion. “We need an officer like Mr. Sagayam to nail the land sharks and get justice to hundreds of farmers and the poor who had lost their fertile land to granite quarry operators,” said P. Somasundaram, president of the Water Resources Protection and Anti-Corruption Movement.
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Mr. Somasundaram, who had impleaded himself in many of the granite cases, said the farmers were getting ready to meet Mr. Sagayam with petitions to get back their land and put pressure on the government to retrieve over 26,000 acres from a granite company by implementing the Land Ceiling Act. “We also need to bring to book those officials who connived at the scam over the years.”
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Officials at the Secretariat in Fort St. George can browse the Internet on their computers, but only for work. Facebook and YouTube are forbidden. Access to these sites is barred during office hours. It may be available after 6 p.m.
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The IT team is said to be under orders to convey the message that the Internet is meant to facilitate the work of the government, and not for connecting with friends or watching movies at working hours.
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Forest officials of Tirupur and the district administration appear not to be on the same page. Recently, forest officials set up a cage to trap a leopard that had a killed a few animals near Amaravathi Nagar.
They advised people of the area not to go out after sunset. But, on Thursday night, officials of the district administration arrived at the spot to “supervise” the operations of the forest officials, saying the leopard had to be caught within three days.
They are said to have used powerful searchlights and created noise, angering locals and the forest officials alike.
“The measures taken by the Forest Department officials were to trap the leopard or to drive it away permanently from the area. The presence of large number of people and noise would make the entire futile,” said one forest official.
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The Coimbatore Mayoral by-poll held on Thursday was notable for several reasons. Even while the turnout was low, it was abysmal in urban areas, where educated citizens are the first to complain about unresponsive local authorities.
One polling booth, at R.S. Puram, recorded just 7.7 per cent by 1 p.m., whereas semi-urban areas newly added to the corporation polled 20 per cent by 10 a.m. The next time those in urban areas decide to complain about politicians, perhaps they will first consider contributing to the process of electing them.