Rs 2,185 crore approved by Centre for road development, informs Pondy CM

Launching Life Insurance Corporation of India’s free life term credit card for policy holders here, he said Union Minister for Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, who visited Puducherry last week, had sanctioned the amount.

Gadkari had visited Puducherry recently to review the highways projects and had approved of development of highways and introduction of four way lanes linking Puducherry with important segments at a cost of Rs 2,185 crore.

Narayanasamy said that Puducherry was marching ahead in various sectors, including implementation of welfare measures. 

The Centrally sponsored Ayushman Bharath scheme now covering only 1 lakh families in Puducherry would be expanded to cover all the 2.5 lakh families in the Union Territory, he added.

He said that welfare of people and particularly, women and have-nots was the priority for the government. 

The Chief Minister lauded the initiatives of the LIC and said that the Corporation was playing a pro-active role in ameliorating lot of people.

The LIC had earned the trust of the people and the role by it was crucial, he added.

AIADMK Legislature party leader A Anbazhagan on Monday said that the new industrial policy unveiled by the Congress government three years ago has come as a cropper as no entrepreneur has responded to set up units here.

Talking to news persons, Anbazhagan said that the government should take steps to ensure that the AFT Mill functioned without hiccups. “There is already a move to wind up this century old mill instead of implementing VRS scheme to keep the mill running,” he said. 

Anbazhagan also wanted the government to table on the floor of the Assembly the report of the B Vijayan committee that went into the various aspects of the AFT and other mills here. 

He alleged that Chief Minister V Narayanasamy was ‘hoodwinking people by making false statements’ on mill issue and other administrative matters.

Lt Governor Kiran Bedi on Monday termed as total ‘lie’ a report which said that she has written to the Union government not to approve the ferry service between Karaikal and Jaffna in Sri Lanka.

In a message, the Lt Governor said that the report, which appeared in a section of the media, is 100 per cent false. 

On the contrary, she requested the Union Minister to ensure a comprehensive plan for the Government of India project so that all plans are implemented simultaneously like immigration, intelligence, narcotics traffic, which now have a committee of all stakeholders under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretary, so that people of Karaikal get all that is required.

“Telling lies is a habit of some one here,” Bedi added.