Unlike the so-called investigative magazines and dailies in Tamil Nadu trembling at the oppressive regime, the ‘Free, Fair, Fearless’ Tehelka magazine had been exposing scandals and irregularities at the Centre and in all states. Already, the Group’s business daily ‘Financial World’ exposed Jayalalitha’s laptop scandal in a two-instalment and authentic expose in October last, for which the ADMK regime did not and could not reply. Now Tehelka in its issue dated 22 January 2012 has come out with the following exposure of the Jayalalitha regime.
---
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister
J Jayalalithaa’s plans to usher in “another white revolution” in the state
might just be the case of wrong use of terminology. The rate at which the cows
distributed freely under a government scheme are dropping dead, a leather
revolution instead looks imminent.
To match the free distribution of colour TV
sets by former CM and DMK supremo M Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa set out to
distribute free of cost, cross-bred Jersey cows to families in villages that
don’t have milk co-operatives, and four goats each to seven lakh other
families. The government had set aside a budget of Rs 1,157 crore to achieve
this feat over a period of five years.
But probing this novel
idea a little further brings out some interesting details. That the cattle will
be purchased from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra
is the first curious fact. States such as Andhra have been following a cattle
import policy to boost their own production and Tamil Nadu is one of its
suppliers.
According to the animal
husbandry ministry website, Tamil Nadu has the highest population of cross-bred
exotic cattle, which includes Jersey cows. A
ministry official, who does not wish to be named, insists that the decision to
buy cattle from outside the state was made to boost the milk production in
Tamil Nadu.
To achieve this
perplexing merry-goround ride of cattle repurchase and resale, the state takes
the beneficiary to Andhra Pradesh to choose the cow, spending Rs 3,000 for the
transport of the person and the cow. A researcher in the field of cattle claims
that cattle traders from Tamil Nadu take the cows to Andhra the day before the
‘cow-selectors’ arrive, sometimes the District Collector in tow, and sell the
same back to the unsuspecting villagers. Their motive: pass off a cow that has
already given birth to more than 10 calves as one in its first or second lactation
cycle, as laid down in the conditions of the scheme.
As a result, till date,
11 of the 50 cows procured by a village have dropped dead. Gokulakrishnan of
Poolathur in Dindigul district, says that the cows the villagers brought back
were already very old. “The government has promised insurance, but the money is
yet to come,” he says. S Ramesh Kannan, a resident of Kumbaiyur village of the
same district, says that they neither have the space to breed the cattle nor
the money to feed them: “I have to spend almost Rs 100 a day to feed the cow.
As a labourer, I earn only Rs 200 a day. Each cow was bought for Rs 30,000 and
transportation cost came up to Rs 3,000. The cows we bought won’t even sell for
Rs 10,000. We could have got two local cows here for the same price. They seem
to have already given birth to more than 10 calves each and hardly give a litre
of milk a day.”
Ministry officials claim
that no complaints have been registered, despite this issue being covered in
the local media.
A vet has to be paid Rs
300 per visit to a village, transport cost included, to treat a cow. It is an
established fact that exotic breeds of cows, such as the Jersey,
fall sick very often. They also don’t feed on natural fodder but eat into the
human food supplies such as millet and corn.
This is not the only
scheme implemented by Jayalalithaa without any debate or discussion with the
Opposition since she took charge last May. The other big decision she has taken
is the overnight hike in bus fares and milk prices. Perhaps she has hurried to
unveil unpopular policies with an eye on the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, by which
time the public might have forgotten the pinch. But some memories haunt.
Take the case of ST
Manikkam, a peon at the State Bank of India, Tirunelveli district, who was
told on the bus that the 14 fare from his village to his workplace (a distance
of 53 km) had doubled overnight. He had slept through his bumpy ride home the
previous day, with no idea about the late evening announcement by the CM. Even
though the price hike in mid-November was moderated to Rs 25 by December, the
rollback did not stop him from finding a job closer to home. “I used to earn Rs
5,000 at SBI. I can’t afford to spend around Rs 1,500 just on transport,” he
says. Manikkam has a family to take care of and it is the least of his concerns
that the State Transport Corporation is suffering losses.
It is no secret that the
previous DMK government did not revise fares for fear of losing votes. But
Jayalalithaa has gone the other extreme by jettisoning the more humane practice
of gradual price rise. Of course, even a Rs 1 increase close to the elections
would go against the party.
A hike of Rs 5 per litre
in the price of the state-run Aavin milk had equal ramifications for the
public. After the government increased the procurement prices as well by Rs 2,
private milk producers and distributors did not spare any time in increasing
their prices to match government rates.
IN HER third term,
Jayalalithaa has lived up to her reputation of being ruthlessly efficient. As
soon as she took office, one of her first decisions was to move out of the new
Assembly complex built during the DMK regime. The move was swift, unstoppable
and so far, irreversible. Soon followed a review of Samacheer Kalvi, an
education scheme that sought to standardise the syllabus, putting it on the
backburner.
Apart from the sporadic
off-the-record responses from the ministry, no official explanation is
forthcoming on queries regarding the policies. “It is the chief minister’s
policy. We are here only to implement it,” is the standard answer. Bordering on
mischief, but more out of fear, Jayalalithaa’s ‘faithful’ ministers and
government servants alike add, “If you want information, please talk to her.”
As if her Poes Garden residence, or as much as a phone
line, is open to journalists.
There’s virtually no one
in the government or the party who is willing to talk on record. When Tamil
magazine Nakkeeran’s office was vandalised by AIADMK elements on 7 January for
having published an article defaming Jayalalithaa’s Brahmin roots, or her
long-time confidante Sasikala was ousted unceremoniously from her residence, or
when a land case against the CM is about to reach a conclusion, there is nobody
to answer probing questions.
(Courtesy:
Tehelka)
No comments:
Post a Comment