Mettur dam not to be opened on June 12
Chennai: Release of water from the Mettur dam on June 12 to enable the farmers in the Cauvery delta region to undertake Kuruvai (short term) paddy cultivation was unlikely this year though the final decision on it would be taken based on the inflow of water into the reservoir in the next few days, State Agriculture Minister M R K Panneerselvam said on Friday.
Talking to the media, after releasing a guide for coconut farmers, prepared by Minister for Tamil Development and Information M P Saminathan at a function organized in the State Secretariat, Panneerselvam said coconut cultivation had been taken up in 91,000 hectares. The booklet was received by Minister for MSMEs T M Anbarasan.
The lifting of the Model Code of Conduct that was in place for the past few months in view of the Lok Sabha elections had led to Ministers holding several events like the publication of the guide to farmers, restarting their official work that was hitherto in a limbo.
So meetings and consultations were held at various venue across the city and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR & CE) Minister P K Sekar Babu presided over a meeting to review the arrangements being made by his department for the organising of the Global Muthamizh Murugan Conference at Palani on August 24 and 25.
The meeting was to fast track the arrangements for the conference that will be attended by Tamil scholars and spiritual leaders. It is expected to bring devotees of the Tamil God, Lord Murugan, to one of his six abodes – Palani.
Labour Welfare and Skill Development Minister C V Ganesan presided over a meeting to review the functioning of the 20 welfare boards of unorganised workers in the State at the DMS campus. One of the announcements made at the meeting was that welfare schemes to the tune of Rs 1551,81,70,338 were disbursed to 18,46,945 workers from the unorganized sector.
Cooperative Minister K R Periyakaruppan presided over a meeting at the State Cooperative Union office in Kilpauk to review the implementation of the announcements concerning the department and also to discuss the announcements to be made in the coming Assembly session starting on June 24.
Addressing the officials, the Minister said he was happy that all the announcements made in the previous session had been implemented and urged to ensure that in future, too, all of them should be implemented without any delay.