Coimbatore: Minister of state for finance Pon Radhakrishnan said the protests against the eight-lane Salem-Chennai green corridor are fuelled by certain organizations who are specifically working to stop Tamil Nadu from developing further.
He said almost 75% growth in the private sector comes from the western region and some people believe that stopping the corridor will stop development.
Speaking at an interaction with industrialists at the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ICCI), Coimbatore, on Wednesday, the minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was bringing in a lot of infrastructure development to the state in the form of an expanded airport, more modern developed railway stations and laying roads. “We have allotted Rs 600 crore just for four-laning the Coimbatore-Pollachi highway,” said Radhakrishnan. He said Coimbatore is one of the four cities in the country which has been selected for creation of bus ports, or underground bus stations.
The minister promised that the Centre would fulfill any demands that the industrialists had to further let the region develop. “To further work on creation of the defence corridor, we are meeting with industrialists and stakeholders of the project,” he said. “In fact, one of the four bus ports planned in the country have been allotted to Coimbatore,” he said. “Once this comes up, four districts around Coimbatore including the Nilgiris, Tirupur and Erode will benefit,” he added.
“If industrialists here want to set up plants in the southern districts like Kanyakumari and Ramanathapuram, we are willing to extend any help required in that direction,” he added.
However, the minister said the central government was not “disturbed” by the protests. “Every time an infrastructure project comes up and land acquisition is involved, it will invite protests. It is the state government’s responsibility to convince farmers that it is for their benefit and it is a win-win situation,” said Radhakrishnan. He urged the state government and the police force to act against those thwarting development projects. Referring to petition by villagers of Tuticorin that members of an outfit were behind aggravation of the protest into violence against Sterlite, he said those elements should be dealt with severely.
Meanwhile, industrialists and trade associations from across sectors like real estate, textile, machine works met the minister and put forth their demands. “We want micro industries to have an exemption of Rs 20 lakh but for them to get registered under GST, because they lose business from corporates because they are not registered,” said CODISSIA president V Sundaram. “We also need tax on household items like mosquito repellant bats to be brought down from 28% to 5% and an alternate system to the e-way bill for small manufacturers who do not have computers,” he said.
More flights to replace the flights withdrawn by Jet Airways and more connectivity to the T 3 terminal in New Delhi along with a night train to Bangalore were among the demands.