Subsidised cement for middle class building house

Chennai, Feb 1 (UNI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today announced in the State Assembly that middle class people, constructing houses, could directly purchase subsidised cement from civil supplies corporation godowns after producing the building plan.

Replying to debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor's address, the Chief Minister also announced doubling of the quota of cement from 100 bags to 200 for middle class people, who build a house in an area of 1,000 sq ft.

He said of the 20,000 metric tonnes of cement made available by the private cement manufacturers to be sold at the concessional rate of Rs 200 per bag for economically poor people, 1,540 metric tonnes of cement have been sold till January 30.

After the government announced sale of cement at concessional rate, it had insisted that those who wanted to purchase the cement, should obtain purchase order from the revenue officials after showing the building plans in their respective regions.

On the Centre's reported move to insist on 60 per cent marks for SC/ST students to avail Post Metric scholarships, Mr Karunanidhi said the state government would continue to provide them scholarships under the existing norms.

Even if the Centre insisted 60 per cent minimum marks for the scholarship, the state government would make available the scholarship from its own fund and bear the additional expenditure, he said.

UNI WS DS HT1724