Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K.S. Alagiri has demanded that the AIADMK government publish the list of beneficiaries online of the ₹2,000 one-time benefit announced by it, alleging that the government was giving away its money to those aligned with it.
In a statement, Mr. Alagiri slammed the government that it was spending money with an eye on elections though the State debt had been consistently on the rise in the past seven years. “As per the 2018-19 budget, there were only 28.32 lakh families below the poverty line. How did that number suddenly go up to 60 lakh? How was this figure arrived at? Under the PDS scheme, there are two crore ration cards. Out of this, 30% of 60 lakh households are below the poverty line. This means only one in 10 persons is below the poverty line,” Mr. Alagiri said.
Post details online
The TNCC president demanded that the government make the list of beneficiaries public, post the details online and keep the list at gram sabhas to enable people to verify the details.
He said the government was spending large sums of money by giving advertisements in various newspapers for completing two years in power following the death of Jayalalithaa.
“While there are so many problems to be resolved in the State, the Centre is conspiring against Tamil Nadu with many schemes such as methane, hydrocarbon, neutrino, GAIL oil pipelines, NEET, Mekedatu among many others. The AIADMK, with 50 MPs in Parliament, is unable to protest against the Centre,” he said.
He said the government with such high debt was unable to make long-term plan.
