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Chennai, April 1 (). Tamil Nadu Water Works Minister and senior DMK leader S. Duraimurugan said on Saturday that the state government was not slowing down the Cauvery-Vaigai-Gunder river-linking project.
Duraimurugan told the assembly that the government was keen that the project be completed expeditiously.
The opposition AIADMK had told the House that the pace of the project had slowed down since the DMK came to power. In his reply, the minister said that the pace of land acquisition and digging of canals for the project has picked up in the last two years.
The minister said that in 2020 the then AIADMK government had allocated Rs 600 crore for the project, but only Rs 34.31 crore was spent and 71.6 acres of land was acquired for the project and the remaining amount was returned to the exchequer in the same year Went.
In his speech, Duraimurugan said that the DMK government has allocated Rs 312 crore in the last two years and acquired 698.97 acres of land. He also said that instead of returning the amount to the exchequer by the end of the financial year, the present government has made a provision to keep the remaining money in deposit for further use towards land acquisition.
The minister also said that a further allocation of Rs 554.17 crore has been made by the DMK government for land acquisition for 2023-24.
He said that during the previous AIADMK government no digging of the canal was done in 2020-21. During the DMK rule, Rs 177.9 crore has been allocated in the last two years and 64 per cent of the targeted work has been completed.
He also said that Rs 111.52 crore has been allocated for the digging of the canal in the financial year 2023-24.
There was uproar in the House when former AIADMK minister C. Vijayabaskar said that it was former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, who allocated funds for the project, after which the work was started.
Duraimurugan contradicted Vijayabaskar by saying that the DMK government started construction of the barrage at Mayanoor for the project when it was in power in 2009.
SGK/ANM
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