Govt. withholding grants to panchayats: Jayalalitha

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JAN. 13. The AIADMK general secretary, Ms. Jayalalitha, today criticised the DMK Government for ``withholding grants'' to over 12,600 village panchayats for the last one year.

In a statement, she said the village panchayats were unable to fulfil the basic needs of the people on account of this situation.

The Government, she said, had not been providing the required grants-in-aid towards stamp duties, state finance commission subsidy, house-tax matching grants, funeral subsidy etc. for the panchayats, she charged.

The Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, had been ``deliberately conspiring'' to withhold the grants-in-aid as AIADMK partymen had been elected as presidents of over 9,000 village panchayats.

Owing to paucity of funds, even the electricity charges for street-lights, water pumping stations and TV sets installed in the villages were not paid, she said, adding that, as a result, electricity supply had been cut off.

``This being the dismal condition in most of the village panchayats, the Karunanidhi Government has been hoodwinking the people with grandiose plans that are damp squibs or mere dazzling announcements'', she said.

The writers in village panchayats, water pump and TV set operators and social hygiene workers had not been paid their salaries for many months.

But, Mr. Karunanidhi, ``in order to garner money for his various self-promotion schemes'', had issued emergency orders last November to the RTOs through the Home Department to collect Rs. 700 crores. For collecting this amount, the officials were resorting to conducting sudden inspection drives and were engaged in collecting punitive taxes in some form or the other, she said.

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Section  : Southern States
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