CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Saturday alleged that municipal administration minister K N Nehru was prioritising the DMK’s youth wing conference scheduled to take place in Salem than cyclone Michaung, even as the meteorology department was issuing alerts for a week about the rainfall.
Talking to reporters after distributing relief material in north Chennai, Palaniswami said the minister was not concerned about the precautionary measures that were required to be taken to protect the people but kept his focus on the conduct of the event every day. “The minister was in Salem most of the time. If the time spent there was spent in Chennai, people would have been saved from a lot of damage,” the former CM said.
He charged the DMK ministers with speaking contrary to the truth on the implementation of the storm water drain high-cost project in Chennai. While the previous AIADMK regime conceived a five-year programme to build 2,400km long drains and executed 1,240km, the successive regime did not complete it fully but claimed to have done it, he said. “People have huge doubts that there’s a scam in the project,” he said. Nehru had told reporters on Friday that the government allotted Rs 5,166 crore for building drains and completed work costing Rs 2,191 crore.
Palaniswami urged the state government to extend compensation to the units of Ambattur industrial estate suffered due to waterlogging. He also demanded that the government compensate for the loss of paddy crop in Thiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Mayiladuthurai and Nagapattinam districts.
Meanwhile, former chief minister O Panneerselvam told reporters in Taramani that flood water still had not receded in all areas of Chennai and relief material too did not reach the needy. “The government should announce Rs 15,000 to each family immediately,” he said, after distributing relief items in south Chennai. OPS announced that he and supporters would contribute one-month salary to the Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund.
