Chennai, March 22: Union minister of Highways and Transport, Nitin Gadkari said that there will be all round development of Puducherry if BJP led alliance is elected to power. He said that there will be a “Double Engine” growth for the state if the alliance comes to power. He was addressing media persons at the Puducherry state headquarters of the BJP.
The Union minister said that one engine will be that of the Narendra Modi government at the centre while the second engine will be that of the BJP alliance government at the state.
Gadkari said that if the BJP led government is formed at the state, the projects initiated by the Central government will be implemented for the growth of the state .
The Union minister came down heavily on the previous Narayanaswamy government and said that they failed to implement several projects sanctioned by the Union government.
He said that Rs 20,000 crore infrastructure projects were sanctioned by the Union government for Puducherry and Tamil Nadu and added that the implementation of these projects would change the face of the two states. Gadkari said that some of these projects are in the final stages of implementation while others are in the process of finalizing their Detailed Project Reports(DPR).
The union minister said that the “Sagaramala” project for the development of port at Puducherry will lead to economic development. He said that the total project cost is Rs 305 crore and added that the project would be implemented in three phases. An amount of Rs 75 crore is sanctioned for the first phase which is for capital dredging , the second phase is for Rs 60 crore which is for constructing berthing facilities in the old port and the third phase is of Rs 170.2 crores which is for construction of container terminal and berthing in new port. The minister said that trawlers which can travel upto 100 nautical miles are being developed at Cochin Shipyard and that these will boost the productivity by seven times.
He said that Puducherry will be transformed into an important state of South India and refuted the charges of the former Chief minister Narayanaswamy that the BJP is trying to merge Puducherry with Tamil Nadu.
–BPN
