Cheap rice promise to cost TN Rs 1,920 crore

TAMIL NADU ASSEMBLY POLL 2006

M Karunanidhi's proposal of providing rice to the poor at Rs 2 a kg carries a price tag of Rs 1,920 crore for Tamil Nadu. Campaigning for the DMK in the Assembly polls, Karunanidhi said he would unveil on April 5 how he would finance the offer of colour televisions to the below the poverty line families.

But on cheap rice, Karunanidhi said his party would implement the promise, if it came to power. The state government was paying a subsidy for rice, supplied by the Centre. If the subsidy was increased the cost of the rice would be Rs 2, he said.

What he did not say was how much it would cost the state. The Tamil Nadu government is now selling rice for Rs 3.50 a kg, incurring a loss of Rs 1,350 crore a year. If this figure increases by 40 per cent, the loss will swell to Rs 1,920 crore.

The man who is increasingly emerging as Karunanidhi's biggest headache ""V Gopala-swamy alias Vaiko "" charged the DMK with hypocrisy. When the Centre raised the price of the PDS rice to Rs 6.50 a kg, the DMK kept quiet, Vaiko charged, because the party did not want to lose its goodwill with the Centre that enabled it to name so many Union ministers.

Now, the DMK wanted to land the state government deeper into debt by increasing the subsidy the government would have to fork out, he said.

Karunanidhi, however, who appears to keep his guns trained at Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa as his principal opponent, said the AIADMK had done away with the "uzhavar santhai" (farmers' market) concept, under which over 1.6 million farmers and 54 million consumers had benefitted. The "uzhavar santhai", was abolished by the Jayalalithaa government. "People will clearly understand this," he said.

He also said the AIADMK government had attempted to do away with the free power scheme, but had to beat a hasty retreat only because the DMK and other parties threatened to launch an agitation, he added.

On Jayalalithaa's charge of the Centre meting out step-motherly treatment to the state, he said neither she nor any of her ministers had cared to meet any Union ministers to get schemes approved for the state, during her five-year rule.

Recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had denied having shown any partiality in giving financial aid and other assistance to any state, affected by natural calamities.

Meanwhile, Jayalalithaa explained why the "golden era of the AIADMK" should be brought back to Tamil Nadu.

She listed the Veeranam project, re-employment of 10,000 road labourers, killing of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, "good" law and order, no power cut and large amount of FDI into the state as among her government's achievements.