TN Govt contemplating action on Elcot land issue: Karunanidhi

Chennai, Aug 10: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today told the State Assembly that his Government was contemplating future course of action on the controversial Elcot land deal issue.

The issue generated much heat in the Assembly, resulting in uproarious scenes, that was marked by shouts and counter-shouts from the main opposition AIADMK and the Treasury Benches and forced the Speaker to issue a warning to an AIADMK member.

Intervening on the issue Mr Karunanidhi listed out five reasons for cancelling the Government Order (GO), issued by the previous AIADMK regime, allotting 123 acres of land owned by the state-owned ELCOT to five software companies at Sholinganallur on the IT corridor, and sought to put an end to the issue.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Mr C Gnanasekaran (Congress) wanted to know on what basis the previous Government had agreed to sell them at a rate as low as Rs 48 lakh per acre, which would incur crore of rupees loss to the State exchequer and whether the present Government would initiate against them.

The AIADMK members objected to it resulting in noisy scenes.

There were heated exchanges between the Treasury bench and the opposition and Speaker R Avudaiyappan warned Pollachi Jayaraman (AIADMK) and asked him to resume his seat.

Intervening, Electricity Minister Arcot N Veerasamy said the Congress member had only referred to the State Cabinet's decision to cancel the GO, and there was no ulterior motive in it. He had not made charge against the former Minister. He had only said the cancellation of the GO would result in crore of rupees profit to the Government.

The Deputy leader of the Opposition O Panneerselvam said Mr Gnanasekaran could have talked about the issue in two lines.

The Government has the powers to take action against those, who had committed the irregularity and no one was going to stop it.

Responding, Mr Avudaiyappan said the member should only express his views and should not threaten the member. Congress Legislature Party Leader D Sudarsanam wanted to know whether it was proper for a member to threaten another member of the house. Intervening, Mr Karunanidhi recalled the decision taken by the Cabinet Meeting during the previous AIADMK regime and the subsequent GO passed by it allotting 123 acres of land off to five software companies -- Cognizant Technologies (20 acres), Megasoft (25 acres), Benchmark Soft Tech (25 acres), Proton Web (three acres) and Advance Software (50 acres) -- at the rate of 48 lakh per acre.

The GO could not be implemented as the model code of conduct for the Assembly polls came into force.

Explaining the reasons for cancelling the GO, Mr Karunanidhi said Elcot had violated the rules while identifying the Consultancy firm.

The steps taken by the Consultancy firm was unilateral and all process was completed in a haste in three days. The Elcot had not paid due attention to the recommendations and the report was sent to the Government on the same day without being reviewed by the Elcot.

The report and the recommendations of the Consultancy firm were not placed before the Administrative Committee of the Elcot.

''When we were thinking of ordering a DVAC probe into these irregularities, the State Cabinet met on July 20, studied the issue in detail and the large scale malpractices, and decided to cancel the GO'', he added.

''If such a decision had not been taken of, if the GO was not cancelled, the Government would have sufferred crore of rupees loss as pointed out by some of the members'', he said and added that the Government was considering future course of action.

After PMK Floor leader G K Mani, Leader of the House and Finance Minister K Anbazhagan made their remarks on the conduct of the members, the Speaker warned of stern action, if the opposition members did not conduct themselves well and maintain the decorum of the House.

UNI