Saturday, July 23, 2011

CPI(M) urges Tamil Nadu government to evolve ‘land use policy'



The State unit of the CPI(M) on Friday urged the State government to evolve a “land use policy” to prevent indiscriminate acquisition of agriculture lands for other purposes.

Talking to reporters here, State secretary G. Ramakrishnan said in many places lands had been acquired in the name of industrialisation but never utilised for the purpose.

“Let the State government evolve a policy for acquiring agriculture lands. This is very important since the agricultural production in the State has come down from Rs.22,022 crore in 2005-06 to Rs.20,876 crore in 2009-10,” he said.

The party on Thursday met Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and submitted a memorandum drawing her attention to various issues, including agricultural reforms, land distribution to poor, uniform education, industrial policy and empowerment of women and minorities.

Mr. Ramakrishnan said the State government should table in the Assembly the privileges extended to industrial and corporate houses while signing a memorandum of understanding for setting up industries in the State.

“The report should tell the investment brought into the State by these companies and the employment generation by them. We also need the details about the loss caused to the exchequer because of the privileges offered to these companies,” he said.

Asked about the allegations of the DMK leadership that their party functionaries had been targeted by the State government on land grabbing cases, Mr. Ramakrishnan said many of the incidents took place during the DMK regime and no action was taken against the culprits. “There was a direction from the Madras High Court against former Minister Veerapandi S. Arumugam in connection with land grabbing. But the police did not take any action at that time,” he added.

As regards uniform syllabus, he said the government should immediately distribute textbooks to students.

“We should keep in mind that uniform syllabus is only one of the many recommendations of the Muthukumaran committee constituted by the previous government. There are other aspects such as education through mother tongue, quality education in government schools and infrastructure development,” he further said. Besides demanding a university for the development of folk arts, the CPI(M) also wanted allocation of adequate land for the sports university.

(Source : The Hindu)

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