JOIN USAll's well with K'kulam: Jaya
Chief Minister J Jayalalitha on Tuesday defended her government’s decision to allow the resumption of pre-commissioning activities of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP), saying that the fears of residents of Kudankulam area were adequately addressed.
In a statement explaining the government stand on some raging issues, including the continuing protests by anti-KNPP activists, severe power crisis and the Cauvery waters, the chief minister said two expert panels, one appointed by the Centre and other by her government, had comprehensively gone into all the safety issues raised by the activists.
Both groups visited the Kudankulam area, studied all safety and related issues and “have given appropriate replies to all the queries raised by the anti-KNPP struggle committee,” Jayalalitha said. The Cabinet decision was reversed and she had given the go-ahead for resuming works in the KNPP complex “only after both expert committees have in their reports testified to the full safety of KNPP” after Fukushima disaster, she added.
Jayalalitha also took a dig at DMK chief M Karunanidhi for demanding the government to reach out to the protesters and hold talks when the KNPP’s first 1,000 Mwe unit is all set to start production “in a few weeks from now”. This has only exposed his double standard on the issue, she said. Last year, when the protesters had intensified their struggle, the DMK leader had urged that there should be no further hold-up of activities in the KNPP complex after the expert panels had given a clean chit, she pointed out. The chief minister promised that the Rs 500 crore development package announced for the Kudankulam people would get off the ground once peace and normalcy was restored there.
She decried Karunanidhi’s similar “totally contradictory stands” even on other issues including the power crisis in the state and in the Cauvery waters issue. Clarifying why she rejected the “ruling” at the meeting of the Cauvery River Authority (CRA) in New Delhi, chaired by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, she said it was because his directive to Karnataka to release 9,000 cusecs to Tamil Nadu for 25 days was even less than the recent Supreme Court ruling that stipulated that Karnataka release 10,000 cusecs of Cauvery waters from September 12 till September 20, prior to the Centre convening the CRA meeting.