End strike and reduce the price of cotton bales; Annamalai urges TN govt

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party president K Annamalai on Thursday urged the state government to take steps to reduce the price of cotton bales sold to open-end Spinning mills and to negotiate with the mill owners who are on strike and reach a good solution.

Speaking about the open-end spinning mills strike in and around the 'Textile city' (Coimbatore), Annamalai said that due to the administrative incompetence of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government, lakhs of workers who depend on the textile industry are suffering day by day.

"Mills in Coimbatore and Tirupur continue their strike for the second day due to the hike in electricity tariff. Production of 1500 tonnes of yarn per day seems to have been affected. The livelihood of thousands of workers has been threatened by the sudden hike in the price of cotton bales and the increase in electricity tariffs. For MSME mills, the demand charge for one kilowatt of electricity has been raised almost five times to Rs 153, and the daily charge has to be Rs 17,200 per month regardless of whether the mill is operated or not. The strike is being held demanding a reduction in the tariff hike, removal of 15% peak hour tariff for running mills during 6-10 hours in the morning and evening, among other demands. Due to a 15 percent hike in electricity tariff and increase in peak hours, industries are now forced to close down. Out of 600 open end mills, 280 mills are on strike for the second day and another 290 mills have announced to go on strike from next Monday, " he said in the statement.

Slamming the chief minister MK Stalin, the retired IPS turned politician said that the chief minister and other ministers are busy watching movies and writing reviews without any concern about the people and industries.

"Since no one is coming forward to start new industries in Tamil Nadu, MK Stalin who has been fooling the people by travelling to Dubai, Singapore, Japan, should consider running the government as a duty to the public and not as entertainment, and should immediately take steps to reduce the price of cotton bales sold to open-end spinning mills. And I urge that they should immediately try to negotiate with the mill owners who are on strike and reach a good solution so that no one is affected, " Annamalai added.

Annamalai lauds Arappor for bringing out "graft" in TNEB

In another statement, the Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai lauded the Arappor Iyakkam (a movement against corruption) for bringing out all the valid information about the corruption in the electricity board.

"There is no possibility that the corruption of Rs 397 crore could have happened without the direct connection of the then energy minister V Senthil Balaji and all the officials including the Chairman and Managing Director of the Tangedco. I urge the government to immediately register a case and take action against the then minister, officials, contractors and all the EB employees involved in this, including Kasi who was accused in the Transformer procurement corruption case," he said.

Further Annamalai lauded the Arappor Iyakkam who is bringing out all the valid information about the transformers procurement corruption and filed a complaint in DVAC demanding a fair probe into the corruption charges.