Tamil Nadu for using Salem Steel Plant's land for defence corridor: CM

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has recommended to the Centre to utilise about 1,300 acres land available with the Salem Steel Plant (SSP) for the proposed Tamil Nadu industrial defence corridor project. Also, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami has reiterated that the government opposed any move to privatise the SSP.

Intervening the speech of DMK legislator A. P. Nandakumar in the Assembly on Friday, Palaniswami said his government has consistently been opposing any move to privatise the SSP and has been prevailing upon the Centre to drop its disinvestment proposals. “The Tamil Nadu government has been emphasising that the SSP should not be privatised. Party’s MP and Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha Thambi Durai had even raised the issue in Parliament and he had emphatically highlighted the government’s stand,” Palaniswami said. He too had written to the Central government asking it to drop the disinvestment proposal.

Supplementing him, industries minister M. C. Sampath informed that the Chief Minister had suggested utilising about 1,300 acres land belonging to the SSP for India’s first defence industrial corridor to come up in the State.

Raising the issue, Mr. Nandakumar, representing Anaicut Assembly Constituency, expressed concern over the Centre’s move on strategic disinvestment of the SSP, and said this would affect the State’s prospects.

Later, responding to the legislator’s plea for a dam in his constituency, the Chief Minister said the proposal for constructing a reservoir in Melarasanpattu would be considered only after the court case due to problems of land acquisition comes to an end. “But for now the government is considering to build check dams in the constituency,” Mr. Palaniswami added.