Salem: Coming down heavily on the critics of the eight-lane Chennai-Salem super highway, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday pointed out that the ambitious project was aimed at linking several cities right down south to Kanyakumari and to Kochi (Kerala) in deep west.
"There is a misconception that this highway is only meant for Salem. That's not the case, surely. The highway will connect all the important places right down to Kanyakumar in the south and to Kochi in the west. And the highway will not only reduce the travel time significantly, it will also cut down on accidents in a big way", the CM told a huge public rally here after inaugurating scores of government projects and distributing welfare to several people.
"Besides, the eight-lane highway will be built to international standards", he said, while explaining in details the various measures being taken to compensate the owners of land acquired for the project. All the land owners are being compensated liberally, he said, adding, "No one will suffer any loss on this account".
Turning to the Opposition criticism that the government was not reaching adequate relief in quick time to the victims of Cyclone Gaja, the CM said his administration had taken effective steps to mitigate the sufferings of the cyclone victims, by deploying adequate number of ministers and senior bureaucrats to carry out the work, besides allocating the relief materials even without waiting for the Central assistance to arrive.
In any case, the Opposition could point out if there had been any shortcomings and they would be corrected, he said.
