Centre on MK Stalin alleging neglect of Tamil Nadu: ‘Far from truth’

The Centre said it increased funding of projects on railways , highways, airports, and also in schemes in the social and rural sectors in Tamil Nadu

Updated on: Jul 12, 2024, 23:11:29 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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The Narendra Modi government on Friday rejected Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin 's allegation of Tamil Nadu being neglected in sanction of projects by the Centre.

“Statement of chief minister is far from the truth and as a matter of fact, the present NDA government has significantly increased the funding of projects on railways , highways, airports, and also in schemes in the social and rural sectors in Tamil Nadu in the last 10 years,” sources in the government told HT.

According to the government, the budget allocated to TN for railway development between 2009 to 2014 used to average around ₹879 crore. Now, the Centre has allotted a record budget of ₹6,331 crore for railways to the state in 2024-25.

The government has said that the first Vande Bharat train in Tamil Nadu was flagged off on November 11, 2022. At present, 8 Vande Bharat trains are operating in the state.

The Centre has said that total length of national highways in the state was 4,985 kilometres in 2014, and has now increased by 40 per cent to 6,806 kilometres.

The government said that projects having a length of 2,094 kilometres at a cost of ₹64,704 crore have been awarded to Tamil Nadu since 2014. “The government of India is investing/invested a total of ₹2 lakh crore in national highways in Tamil Nadu,” the source told HT.

In the civil aviation sector, the government said five projects worth ₹4,000 crore have been approved in Tamil Nadu, out of which two have been completed.

The modernisation of Chennai airport with a cost of ₹2,467 crore is under implementation in two phases, the first of which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April 2023.

Construction of a new integrated terminal building at Trichy airport worth ₹1,112 crore has been completed and inaugurated by the prime minister in January 2024, the government said.

The government said that total investment received by Tamil Nadu in the port and shipping sector stands at ₹10,168 crore in 62 completed projects. Under the Fishery and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF), 64 projects worth ₹1,574 crore have been approved for Tamil Nadu by the Centre, out of which 34 have been completed.

The Centre said has released ₹20,000 crore for the construction of more than 15 lakh homes in the state in the last 10 years. More than 5 lakh loans worth ₹670 crore have been disbursed to street vendors in Tamil Nadu under PM SVANidhi Scheme, whereas more than 46 lakh farmers of TN have benefitted with amount of ₹11 lakh crore under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi.

The Union government said that more than 1 crore households have been provided tap water connection in Tamil Nadu and 6,500 villages have 100 per cent household tap connections under Jal Jeevan Mission.

A file photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin (Twitter)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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