Tamil Nadu to enact ordinance to ban online rummy

CHENNAI: Following the report submitted by theJustice Chandru committee, the State cabinet met on Monday to take a decision on enacting an ordinance to ban online rummy.

"In the one hour Cabinet meeting, the discussion centred around the report submitted by Justice Chandru and the report was discussed in detail following which the decision to enact an ordinance was taken. The ordinance is expected to be passed immediately,” said sources in the Secretariat.

The Justice Chandru committee submitted its report on Monday morning on the consequences of online rummy and it was already announced that the report will be discussed in the cabinet meeting. The Chief Minister had issued directions to analyse the data provided by the committee to pass a strong ordinance in such a way that it should not be dismissed in the Court, unlike the previous Act that was introduced by the previous AIADMK government but was declared null and void by the Madras High Court.

Sources also said that the scheme of providing Rs 1,000 for girls under Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Higher Education Assurance Scheme was also discussed in detail. The Chief Minister had issued directions to identify the bottlenecks in implementation of the scheme and to avoid any delay in depositing the amount into the account of the beneficiaries.

Sources further said that there was discussion about inviting important personalities for the valedictory function of International Chess Olympiad and on increasing the domestic electricity tariff. Though there was no decision taken in the cabinet, the Chief Minister had directed the Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji to make sure that the hike in tariff did not affect the public much.

Similarly, the issue of pending Bills before Governor RN Ravi was also taken up for discussion. "There are 21 Bills pending before the Governor and Chief Minister was concerned about the pending Bills. The legal provisions on the pending Bills were also discussed,” said sources.

Other issues such as Mekedatu, Covid situation in the State after the daily spike in positive cases and industrial investments were also discussed in the meeting.