Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin will be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, September 25, after the latter returns from the US attending the Quad Summit and addressing the ‘Summit of the future’ at the UN general assembly.
Stalin is now scheduled to leave for New Delhi in the evening of September 24 and return to Chennai the next day after completing his official engagements. Apart from the meeting with the Prime Minister, he also expected to call on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Besides, the Chief Minister will also visit the family of CPM leader Sitaram Yechury who passed away recently when Stalin was in the US on an official tour to lure investments for the State and pay his condolences personally.
Since Yechury was a pillar of strength in the formation of the INDIA coalition ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and was also a personal friend of Stalin, he would like to meet his family members and console them, sources said.
Stalin had originally sought the appointment with the Prime Minister on September 20 to seek the release of funds due to the State by the Union Government. But now the Prime Minister would meet him only on September 25 to listen to the State’s grievances.
With the Prime Minister scheduled to leave for the US on September 21, Stalin wanted to meet him before that and prevail upon him the need for releasing the Rs 573 crore funds under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme that had held back by the Union Government as the State was opposed to the implementation of the New Education Policy.
The Chief Minister also wants to take up the issue of the Union Government not releasing funds meant for the second phase of the Chennai Metro Rail Project, on which the State had started the work with its own funds.
Several attempts by the State government through letters and requests, made at the official and ministerial levels, had not helped the State get the funds due to it. So, the Chief Minister wanted to request the Prime Minister to intervene.
The State is also facing a financial crunch as the Union Government has not released its share of funds for the ambitious Metro Rail second phase covering a distance of 118.9 km and costing Rs 63,246 crore.
The State government started the work on the project, proposed in 2017 to be a Central Sector Project, supported by the Union Government. Since there was a delay in the release of the Union Government's share, the State started the work without waiting for the fund release.
But the Union Government had not released the funds despite the Public Investments Board itself recommending the scheme to be made a Central Sector Project in August 2021.
Though the State government allotted Rs 12,000 crore for the project in its Budget estimates for 2024-25 and had obtained a loan of Rs 21,560 crore from international financial agencies, the continuous funding without the Union Government’s assistance has become a burden on the State’s exchequer.
