Panel for remedial measures on student loans

Tiruchirapalli, Aug 17 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu Assembly Panel on Public Undertakings will be asking the state government to earmark at least two staff in every district collectorate in the state exclusively to assist students who need education loans from banks for higher studies.

Addressing the press here after inspecting various project works of the state governments in Karur and Tiruchirapalli Districts, Panel Chairman G K Mani said students denied education loans could approach the respective district collectors for suitable remedy.

The panel already asked the collectors to take up cases of delay in sanctioning educational loans with higher officials of the respective banks .

The panel was also not satisfied with the activities of the state- owned Tamil Nadu Forest Plantation Corporation especially in and around Tiruchirapalli District, he said.

Though there was enough opportunity to grow 110 varieties of trees, including casuarina, the corproation did not undertake any such initiatives.

Since the state-owned Tamil Nadu News Print and Paper Ltd (TNPL) needed casuarina wood for paper production, it was time the district administration took up massive cultivation of the trees on waste and poromboke lands in Tiruchirapalli District with the help of Tamil Nadu Forest Plantation Corporation. The panel would be making suitable recommendations in this regard.

The panel would also recommend the government to expedite the ongoing underground drainage project in the left out areas of the Tiruchirapalli Corporation and ensure all houses in the corporation limit be linked under the project.

He said the panel received complaints that the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation was not operating adequate buses during school hours in Tiruchirapalli District due to which the students were suffering. For this, it would ask the government to operate adequate number of buses.

The other recommendations would include expedition of 78 ongoing drinking water projects in rural areas, remedial measures for making the state-owned Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation's (TNTDC) hotel here as a profit making unit and relaunch of boating facility at Tepakkulam of Sri Thyumanvarswamy Temple (Rockfort Temple) by the TTDC to attract tourists.

During an inspection of the Dr K A P Viswanatham's Government Medical College Hospital here, the panel received complaints of corruption, shortage of medicines and carelessness towards patients by both medical and paramedical staff. Suitable action would be recommended in the case, he said.

UNI