Jayalalithaa to meet Modi Tuesday, submit list of issues

IANS- 30-May-2014

Chennai, May 30 (IANS) Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday and submit a list of issues concerning Tamil Nadu, it was announced on Friday.

The memorandum will include long-pending issues crucial to Tamil Nadu and on which the central government needs to act, an official statement said.

This will be Jayalalithaa's first meeting with Modi after he became the prime minister May 26.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister didn't attend his May 26 inauguration after Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was invited to the event.

Jayalalithaa is a bitter critic of Rajapaksa, whose regime is accused by critics of killing thousands of innocent Tamils during the final stages of the war that crushed the Tamil Tigers in 2009.

According to the statement, the memorandum would highlight some issues which require the urgent attention of the central government to safeguard the interests of the state and propel it on a faster growth path.

The statement said Jayalalithaa would call on Modi at his office in South Block June 3.

The announcement comes following Modi's various guidelines to his ministers that includes quick response to representations sent by the states and not to keep them pending for long.

The major issues taken up by the state government with the erstwhile Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government include increasing the allocation of kerosene to the state; setting up of the Cauvery Management Board; attempting to encroach upon the powers of the state governments and retrieval of Katchatheevu from Sri Lanka.

Jayalalithaa led AIADMK in its general election manifesto had listed out several issues under the heading "Betrayal of Tamil Nadu by the Congress Coalition Government at the centre and the DMK".

According to AIADMK, the erstwhile UPA government had betrayed Tamil Nadu's interest by filing a counter against the state government's case in the Supreme Court on annulling the transfer of Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1970s.

The state government and the AIADMK has been demanding the constitution of Cauvery Management Board to oversee the sharing of Cauvery river water between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

The final award of Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal was published in the official gazette in February 2013.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister is a strong critic of the current oil pricing formula and has demanded to change it.

The AIADMK had also promised the people to take up with the centre to secure the licence to operate cable television services in Chennai by the Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation.

Another issue that is likely to figure in the memorandum is the safety of Indian fishermen from being attacked by the Sri Lankan navy while fishing on the high seas.