Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Friday launched a scathing attack on the Centre for reducing kerosene allocation to the state, alleging it tantamounted to penalising the poor people for voting her AIADMK to power.
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, she described as "absolutely unreasonable, unacceptable, unfair and unjust" the Centre's action in 'consistently' reducing the allotment despite her taking up the issue with him earlier.
She said that against the actual requirement of 65,140 KL per month, the allotment was reduced to 52,806 KL for April and May 2011 and again to 44,580 KL without any reason.
"Now, the allocation has been further whittled down to 39,429 KL for the quarter April-June 2012 again without any reason or logic", she said.
She recalled that she had pointed out to Singh in her earlier communications that the poor people in the rural and urban areas depend on kerosene supplied through the PDS despite which the allocation had been further reduced now.
"...This callous approach on the part of the Government of India in consistently reducing the allocation is tantamount to penalising the poor people of Tamil Nadu simply because they voted for the AIADMK Government which is in power at present", Jayalalithaa said.
She said she could only term this as "totally arbitrary". The "deliberate" reduction in the allocation of kerosene to Tamil Nadu even to the extent of 50 per cent of the actual requirement was "absolutely unreasonable, unacceptable, unfair and unjust," she said.
Jayalalithaa urged the Prime Minister to reconsider the whole matter and ensure justice by enhancing the allocation of kerosene to 65,140 KL per month or at least to 52,806 KL which was allotted for April-May last year.
PTI
First Published: Friday, May 25, 2012, 12:20