No less than 10 mega infrastructure initiatives of nationwide significance price over ₹20,000 crore are in limbo due to non-cooperation by the Tamil Nadu (TN) authorities, central authorities officers stated including that these initiatives vary from highways, pipelines and a neutrino observatory of world significance.
Tasks are inordinately delayed due to non-cooperation by the state authorities in land acquisition, regulatory approvals, and utility shifting, two officers belonging to totally different ministries of the central authorities stated requesting to not be named.
Their allegations got here after TN chief minister MK Stalin on Friday attacked the Centre for not sanctioning even a single main mission for the state within the final 10 years.
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Spokespersons of each, the Union and the TN governments, didn’t reply to an electronic mail on this matter.
Giving accounts of expenditure in key initiatives in TN, the officers stated the Centre believes in cooperative federalism the place all states are engines of development. On this spirit, Tamil Nadu was given a file finances of ₹6,331 crore in FY25. Moreover, initiatives price crores had been in numerous levels over the past 10 years, they added. Based on them, the Centre awarded freeway initiatives price ₹64,704 crore in TN since 2014 and the entire road-sector investments (deliberate and proposed) are anticipated to the touch ₹2 lakh crore.
Different initiatives within the state are — 5 aviation sector initiatives price ₹4,000 crore, delivery and port initiatives ( ₹10,168 crore), initiatives for fisheries ( ₹1,574 crore), PM Awas Yojana ( ₹20,000 crore in final 10 years), PM Kisan Samman ( ₹11,000 crore to 4.6 million farmers), MGNREGA ( ₹13,392.89 crore in FY24), medical collages ( ₹2,145 crore) and the textile park mission ( ₹2,000 crore), they stated.
Speaking in regards to the 10 mega initiatives caught in TN, they stated the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) — a mission of world significance – had been languishing for years due to the TN authorities’s opposition.
“INO mission is a multi-institutional effort aimed toward constructing a world-class underground laboratory with a rock cowl of roughly 1,200 metres for non-accelerator primarily based excessive vitality and nuclear physics analysis in India,” one official stated.
The analysis is of “world significance” as little-known neutrinos maintain the important thing to a number of vital and elementary questions on the origin of the universe and the vitality manufacturing in stars, he stated.
Tiny neutrinos are unattainable to detect on the floor of the earth; therefore an underground lab is required. There are 4 main laboratories on this planet. They’re situated in Sudbury in Canada, Kamioka in Japan, beneath the Gran Sasso mountains in Italy and in Soudan mines within the USA. The lab is proposed on the Bodi West Hills close to Pottipuram, Theni district of Tamil Nadu. In January 2015, the ₹1,583 crore mission was permitted by the centre with the proposed lab.
“Aside from INO, a number of initiatives together with Kochi-Koottanad-Bengaluru-Mangalore Pipeline, Tindivanam-Nagari new line and Sattanathapuram to Nagapattinam Part of NH-45A (new NH-32) are dealing with points,” he stated.
Moreover infrastructure initiatives, implementation of welfare schemes are additionally tardy in Tamil Nadu, the second official stated.
“Underneath the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), ₹12,491 crore was allotted to TN from 2019-2020 to 2023-2024, however the state may utilise solely ₹5,167 crore,” the official stated. JJM is a flagship central scheme to supply protected and enough consuming water via particular person family faucet connections.
Tamil Nadu has the tenth highest variety of enrolments beneath PM Vishwkarma scheme, which is over 8.35 lakh, however, TN has not notified the state monitoring committee and district implementation committees.
“Because of that there was no progress within the verification and registration of beneficiaries within the state regardless of excessive enrolment,” the official stated. PM Vishwakarma, a central sector scheme, was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 17, 2023, to supply end-to-end assist to artisans and craftspeople who work with their fingers and instruments.
TN is more likely to be the largest beneficiary as a result of the state is thought for arts and crafts, the official stated. The scheme covers craftspeople engaged in 18 trades reminiscent of carpenters, boat makers, blacksmiths, locksmiths, goldsmiths, potters, sculptors, cobblers, masons, garland makers and fishing-net makers.