Author: Ajitha Karthikeyan
Publication: The Times of India
Date: February 11, 2009
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Chennai/TN_to_take_Sai_Babas_help_to_clean_up/articleshow/4108735.cms
[Note from the Hindu Vivek Kendra: DMK takes
a perverse pleasure of trivalising and demonising the Hindus and Hinduism.
But the media does not see any irony of the same DMK to take the help of the
Hindus and their organisations for their own political gain.]
The Tamil Nadu government has decided to knock
on the doors of Sri Sathya Sai Trust once again, seeking help to clean up
the Cooum river which has been reduced to a drainage from a fresh water source.
Local administration minister M K Stalin and
public works minister Duraimurugan will call on godman Sathya Sai Baba at
Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh next week and request him to fund the much-awaited
project. Their visit, planned this week, had to be postponed in view of chief
minister M Karunanidhi's surgery scheduled for Wednesday.
"We've already made a written representation
to Sai Baba in this regard and he has assured us that he will consider the
proposal. The public works department has prepared a project report which
will be submitted to the godman," Duraimurugan said.
"We will seek maximum fund from the Trust
but it is for them to decide on the quantum of assistance. If approved, they
may implement works through L&T," he added.
This is not the first time that the DMK government
has sought the help of Sai Baba for infrastruture development. The Sathya
Sai Trust has already upgraded the 25-km-long Kandaleru-Poondi canal to facilitate
a free flow of Krishna water to meet the water needs of the city. In fact,
chief minister M Karunanidhi, a self-professed atheist, has even publicly
shared dais with Sai Baba for the Krishna water project in 2007, raising many
an eyebrow in the political circle.
Official sources said the estimated cost for
the execution of engineering works, involving river channelisation and catchment
restoration, alone amounted to Rs 140 crore. As the Cooum clean-up project
involved multi-disciplinary activities, including handling of sewage and solid
waste and the removal of encroachments from the river bank and rehabilitation,
the total cost of the project could be arrived at only at a later stage, the
sources added.
Once a fishing river and boat racing arena,
the Cooum flows to a distance of about 65 km of which an 18-km stretch falls
in the city limits.
The upper reaches of the river, running for
a length of 35 km, will be restored under the World Bank-assisted Irrigated
Agriculture Modernisation and Water Bodies Restoration and Management (IAMWARM),
while the remaining tail-end part may be restored by the Sathya Sai Trust.
