TN favours amicable settlement to Mullaiperiyar issue: CM

Chennai, Nov 26: The Tamil Nadu government would not adopt confrontationist attitude with Kerala on the vexatious Mullaiperiyar Dam row and favoured an amicable settlement to the issue.

Replying to a question, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi said either the Cauvery issue with Karnataka or the Mullaiperiyar Dam row with Kerala, Tamil Nadu always favoured cordial relations with the neighbouring states.

''I never deviate from this policy even an inch,'' he said.

''I always favour cordial relations with neighbouring states and this had been stressed in various all party meetings convened to discuss the Cauvery water issue in the past and in the recent meeting on the Mullaiperiyar Dam issue,'' he added.

Stating that he had worked closely with his Karnataka counterpart to prevent any untoward incidents in both the States when forest brigand Veerappan kidnapped Kannada matinee idol Rajkumar, Mr Karunanidhi said ''when the Mullaiperiyar issue reached a flash point and farmers and traders blocked movement of essential commodities to Kerala, I had said that such acts were not in the interests of good neighbourly relations between the two states.'' ''We did not think of adopting a confrontationist attitude even when the Kerala government refused to honour the Supreme court verdict allowing Tamil Nadu to raise the storage level in the dam to 142 ft from 136 ft,'' he said.

Even in the face of recent intimidating, precipitating and provocative statements made by the Kerala Chief Minister and his ministerial colleagues, Tamil Nadu had exereised restraint. This showed the State's commitment to find an amicable solution to the issue.

By adopting such a stand, it should not be construed as a weakness of Tamil Nadu and that there was no justice on its side, he said.

Mr Karunanidhi said the harvest season had just begun and the government had taken steps to fix the State Administered Price (SAP) for sugarcane. Describing as baseless and untrue AIADMK Supremo J Jayalalithaa's charge that the government had reduced the price of sugarcane, he said the previous AIADMK regime had not even convened the tri-partite meeting to fix the SAP.

''Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S Arumugham today clarified that the AIADMK government after losing the Lok Sabha polls in 2004, had increased the price only once in 2005, with an eye on the elections.'' The farmers very well knew how the DMK government would fix the SAP for sugarcane, he added.

On reports in a section of the media that there would be short supply of gas cylinders if the Free gas connection scheme to the poor was implemented, Mr Karunanidhi said Food Minister E V Velu and state government officials had held talks and got an assurance to this effect. There would not be any shortage of cylinders.

UNI