CM charges DCI with delaying desilting sand off port

: Chief Minister V Narayanasamy today charged Dredging Corporation of India with delaying desilting sand in the estuary off Thengaithittu coast here and said they should compensate fishermen for loss of livelihood.
Speaking to reporters here, he said the delay had resulted in hardship to the fishermen as they could not carry on their operations for the last four months.
DCI should compensate fishermen for loss of their livelihood as they could not navigate the sand mounds to put out to sea for fishing, he said.
"Fishermen are raising a banner of revolt and protesting against the government and hence DCI should announce package of relief to them", he said.

Narayanasamy said he had spoken to the DCI Chairman more than thrice on the matter.
He said DCI should have completed dredging in four months as the work was assigned to them on a request by Lt Governor Kiran Bedi to the Shipping Ministry.

He said DCI should have desilted three lakh cubic metres sand since work was taken up in October last, but had desilted only 60,000 cubic metres.
He said government had now allowed a private player join dredging operations. While DCI would dredge three lakh cubic metres, the private player would dredge one lakh cubic metres.
This decision was taken after taking into consideration the need for speedy dredging in the interest of fishermen and also to ensure the initiative to develop Puducherry port into a satellite port in association with Chennai Port Trust turned out to be successful for movement of cargo vessels.

He claimed there had been overwhelming response from a large number of overseas entrepreneurs after government unveiled its new Industrial Policy to start pharmaceutical, food processing and other non polluting industries.
He said government had introduced a single window system to process the applications and is ready with several packages of incentives and subsidies, including the capital, interest and infrastructure subsidies to attract investors.
Narayanasamy said government had taken steps to raise generation of gas based power in Pondicherry Power Corporation in Karaikal. The Energy Ministry had promised allocation of additional natural gas from GAIL to it to raise power generation from 22 MW to 100 MW.

On the recent deaths of three patients in the hemo diyalsis unit in the government medical college hospital here, he said government was awaiting reports of experts to identify the real cause of the deaths.Once the full report was received appropriate action would be taken, he said.