Puducherry, Aug 27: Communist Party of
India (CPI) Puducherry state council secretary R Viswanathan has expressed the
view that the people in the union territory “are not pleased with the Rangasamy-led
AINRC government here”.
Addressing reporters at the party office here last week,
Viswanathan, also former agriculture minister of Puducherry, said that the business
community, students, members of the public and the unemployed youth are reeling
under several hardships following “lack of initiative on the part of the
Puducherry government to end their woes”.
He said that the executive committee of the state CPI in its
meeting held here took stock of the prevailing situation and decided to initiate
firm steps at the party level to force the government to solve people’s burning
problems.
He said that the business community had already observed a
24-hour bandh recently to urge the
government to scrap the hike in value-added tax (VAT). Still, nothing had
been done in this regard.
The CPI leader said that although the government was making
tall claims that Puducherry was a ‘clean city’ one could come across heaps of
garbage at various centres. Inflation is reigning supreme in Puducherry causing
untold hardship to the poor and the have-nots.
The Public Distribution System (PDS) is in sixes and sevens
and all promises of availability of essential commodities are elusive. Students
are left in the lurch without being assisted financially as promised by the
government. Free laptops were yet to be made available.
The central government had not initiated steps to relieve
Puducherry government of its financial crunch. Nor did the Puducherry
government approach the Centre with specific plans, the CPI leader said. The
issues concerning the labourers were also causing concern. More than 1,200
industrial units remained closed in Puducherry. Unemployment is also affecting
the educated youth, he said and around 1.85 lakh youth who had registered their
names with the employment exchange were waiting endlessly for jobs and are
turning frustrated.
The observations made by the report of Comptroller and
Auditor General of India
relating to Puducherry government should be taken as an ‘alarm bell`. The
findings of the CAG report on various counts including the bungling by the UT government
had are a matter of concern.
On the law and order situation here, the CPI leader said
that there was a very close nexus between the police, politicians and anti-social
elements in Puducherry. The frequent occurrences of bomb blasts have come to
cause concern to the people.
Although the Goondas Act has been enforced nothing had been
done to prevent threat to security of the people.
Former CPI legislator N Kalainathan,
who was also present, said that the government had failed to collect the taxes
due to the government from various sections. Around Rs 425.93 crore was due
under various heads including commercial taxes, state excise and other heads. “The
PDS should be toned up.”
Kalainathan said that the centrally-sponsored JIPMER
hospital here should abandon the present collection of user fees from patients.
The levy of the fees was causing hardship to the poor and have-nots turning up
for treatment at this prestigious hospital. He wanted to know what steps the
Rangasamy-led government had taken to urge the Centre to direct JIPMER to
discontinue collection of the user fees.
He said that groupism among police officers was adding to
the failure of law and order machinery to function here. “Police should act
with courage and curb activities of anti-social elements without paying heed to
any political parties’ intervention’, he said. He said that umpteen
numbers of resolutions were adopted on the floor of Puducherry assembly in the
past seeking statehood for Puducherry. `What is the follow up of the
resolutions and what steps the government here had done to draw the attention
of the Centre to plea for statehood,’ he asked.
By : S Vijayabharathi
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