Tamil Nadu: Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chairs meeting with public sector officers in Virudhnagar

Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday chaired a review meeting with all public sector officers in Virudhnagar district of Tamil Nadu. Union Minister said that she was visiting Virudhnagar for the third time to review the problems in the district.

Virudhnagar (Tamil Nadu):Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday chaired a review meeting with all public sector officers in Virudhnagar district of Tamil Nadu. Minister of State, Information and Broadcasting, Dr L Murugan, Srivilliputhur Assembly member Manraj and Virudhunagar District Collector J Meghanatha Reddy were also present in the meeting.

Post the review meeting, the Union Minister presented cheques for loan assistance to entrepreneurs and women's self-help groups in the state under the Central government's various schemes and visited the products exhibition arranged in 23 venues set up by entrepreneurs who had earlier taken loans from public sector banks to start businesses of their own. Sitharaman also announced a project that aims to detect and restrain livestock diseases as well as their spread in human beings and said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central government was not discriminating in the allocation of funds to Tamil Nadu.

Addressing a press conference, the Union Minister said that she was visiting Virudhnagar for the third time to review the problems in the district. "The authorities in this district are languishing in the enactment of a few projects of the Central government," she stated. "I am advising to expedite the project of contributing drinking water through household taps to alleviate the shortage of drinking water, especially in the Virudhunagar district," she added.

Sitharaman further said that although there are three pension schemes for the benefit of wage workers in the district over the age of 60, the authorities are advancing only one scheme. "I have also advised the bank officials to expedite the provision of necessary loan assistance to improve the lives of roadside traders and small traders and directed the district authorities to implement this scheme by March 2022, through which the farmers in Virudhunagar will be able to computerise their produce to other states in the country through the reward scheme," she stated.

She informed that steps have been taken to set up a mobile veterinary team with an area of one lakh livestock and to recruit veterinary surgeons in the district as most of the farmers in the district are interested in animal husbandry.

Speaking on the sale of firecrackers in the state, she said that the federal government has never vetoed the production and sale of firecrackers, and in some states, the sale of firecrackers may have been affected by court-issued orders. "If manufacturers and sellers ask us to fix it, essential action will be taken to solve the problem," she added.

Addressing the former Finance Minister P Chidambaram's criticism of the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) launched by the Centre, Sitharaman said that Chidambaram, who is presently condemning the Central government, himself authorised the privatisation of Delhi Railways during his tenure as finance minister.

ANI