A little over 50,000 people, who had pledged their gold (up to a maximum of 40 grams of five sovereigns) would benefit from the waiver scheme announced by Chief Minister M.K Stalin, said Cooperation Minister I Periasami here on Sunday.
The minister was participating in a bhoomi puja for construction of a new bus stand at ₹5.90 crore at Kanniwadi special grade panchayat.
Speaking on the occasion, he said that the DMK government had in the past planned to build a bus stand here for the facility of the local commuters. However, after the change in guard, the AIADMK came to power. Unfortunately, in the last 10 years, the AIADMK did nothing tangible which would benefit the poor.
The DMK believed in providing infrastructural facilities not only in big cities, but also in rural pockets. Hence, after coming back to the power, works were taken up to build bus stands, markets, community centres et al, in the panchayats.
The Cooperative Banks across the State would give loans to the needy at lower interest rates. For instance, people seeking loans below ₹3 lakh would be charged 7% and not 12%, Mr Periasami said and added that the objective of lowering the interest was not to burden the people, who are mostly from lower strata, with higher rates.
Similarly, the gold loans disbursed during the earlier regime (AIADMK) had very many violations and could not be waived as announced by the previous government. Charging that the AIADMK had ruined the State in every sphere, he also said that the party had also emptied the treasury.
Only during Karunanidhi’s regime, towns like Dindigul witnessed robust growth. Many educational institutions came up here and also government schools were upgraded, which helped the students from travelling to far away destinations. By enhancing the infrastructural facilities at the village and panchayat levels, discontinuing from high schools also became a thing of past.
Collector S Visakan presided over the bhoomi puja function in which MLA I P Senthil Kumar and Lok Sabha MP Velusami took part.
