NE NEWS SERVICE
PUDUCHERRY, SEP 5
Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Saturday charged Lt Governor Kiran Bedi with causing disrepute to the government through her “autocratic decisions.” These included rejecting files sent for approval to sanction grants to State government undertakings and also to government aided private schools, he said.
Addressing a virtual press conference, he said teachers of privately managed and government aided schools have been holding agitations as they were not paid salaries for nearly nine months.
“It was unfortunate that Lt Governor had been rejecting the government decisions to sanction grants without break to private schools so that the teachers would not be left in the cold”, he said. “All along the government grant decided for private aided schools had been available without break. But for last nine months, the schools were facing difficulties. The Lt Governor is citing an untenable reason for refusing to sanction the grants`, he said.
Workers in AFT mill and other government run textile undertakings, cooperative societies and spinning mills had also not been paid the wages for long, he said. He alleged that the Lt Governor was hatching a conspiracy to bring in disrepute to the government by her ”negative” and ”autocratic stand to give her nod for allocation of grants to the schools and PSUs.
“What can the government do if there is such a Lt Governor,”? he asked. Narayanasamy also charged the Centre with being unresponsive to all the pleas for sanction of grants to the Union Territory,”which is facing a critical fiscal situation.” He said the Centre should have earmarked Rs 3,000 crore to Puducherry as grants to meet the budgetary commitments, but this had not been done.
Narayanasamy also urged the people to adhere to safety protocols to prevent spread of COVID-19. He also asked private medical colleges to extend cooperation to the government and treat patients referred to them by the local government without any delay.
