CHENNAI: State Finance Minister O Panneerselvam on Friday clarified that all the lapses pointed out by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in its report for the period 2010-11 pertained to the DMK regime and the present AIADMK government had taken corrective steps to offset the shortcomings. In a statement in Chennai, the Minister said he was forced to make this clarification since many media reports have given the impression that these lapses had occurred under the present government.
On the charge that many Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) had suffered huge losses, he said the present government had taken a number of steps to reduce the losses in PSUs. As far the TNEB was concerned, the subsidy payment for free power supply to farmers has been increased from Rs 250 per horse power (as during the DMK regime) to Rs 1,750.
Regarding the observation that the financial position of the State was very precarious, he said that although the fiscal situation was very grave in the DMK rule, the government under the AIADMK had now consolidated the fiscal situation. The revenue deficit which stood at `2,728 crore in 2010-11 was completely eliminated by the AIADMK government and a revenue surplus of `536.54 crore was achieved during the year 2011-12, he said.
As far as the reduction in area under forest and tree cover was concerned, Panneerselvam said the present government has taken many steps to increase the forest cover.
Stating that the present government was taking steps to evict encroachments, he said a notification was made about the 17,014.13 acres under the Gudalur Janmam Estates Act of 1969 and 11,204.47 acres of land was handed over to the Forest Department for notifying under the TN Forest Act.