To refurbish old tail-end sluices and construct new ones

Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Monday unveiled a Rs 1,560-crore project to refurbish old tail-end sluices and construct new ones in the Cauvery delta districts to conserve rainwater during the monsoon and take measures to prevent incursion of sea water into agriculture lands. “Of the total Rs. 1,560 crore, Asian Development Bank will give Rs 1,092 crore as loan and the rest will be contributed by the State government,” Ms. Jayalalithaa said in a suo motu statement in the Assembly.

Bench directs PWD to file a status report by April 24

A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court Bench here seeking a direction to forbear the Public Works Department (PWD) and Collectors of Karur, Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Nagapattinam and Tiruvarur districts from quarrying sand along the stretches of rivers Cauvery and Kollidam.

Collector visits the completed revetment wall and ramp at Punavasal village

Flood prevention works taken up along the Kollidam river in Thanjavur district by the Public Works Department (PWD) are nearing completion. The works were started in October 2010. Out of the total works taken up at a cost of Rs. 106.22 crore, works to the tune of Rs. 93.34 crore have been finished so far. The rest will be completed before the end of March.

Sterlite Grid, L&T, Lanco Infratech, GMR Group, KEC in the race to bid. Power transmission firms are gearing up to bid for two much delayed transmission projects worth . 2,800 crore, which are likely to be awarded by March. After a lull of almost one year, activity in private-sector participation in power transmission has picked up and developers are keen to grab these projects as the ones awarded earlier have been concentrated mostly between Reliance Infrastructure and Sterlite Grid, which bagged four projects worth . 7,000 crore and three projects worth .

A two-phase pulse polio immunisation programme is scheduled to be carried out in the district in February and April. A consultative meeting on mass pulse polio immunisation was conducted at the Collectorate on Monday.

The proposed immunisation is slated to cover 1,37,925 children under five years at all government primary health centres, government hospitals, anganwadi centres and schools, on February 19 and April 1.

Farmers representatives who participated in the monthly farmers' grievances day meeting held at the Collectorate on Friday urged the State government to come out with a separate budget for agriculture.

They said the government of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka have been presenting separate budget for farm sector since 2011. D. Thiagarajan, senior regional manager, Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC), presided over the meeting.

Census of birds in Krishnagiri district was conducted by the Forest Department at the seven forest ranges in the district from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. for the second year in succession on Friday.

The survey was part of the Integrated Water Bird Census conducted across all wetlands and bird congregations in the State. A 120-member team of forest officers, volunteers from NGOs and students were divided into several teams to cover seven forest ranges such as Hosur, Denkanikottai, Royakottai, Krishnagiri, Anchetty, Urigam, and Jawalagiri.

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today alloted Rs 150 crore for immediate relief measures and directed four Ministers to visit the districts which bore the brunt of cyclonic storm 'Thane'.

After chairing a meeting with senior department officials, Jayalalithaa said she had asked her cabinet colleagues B V Ramana, T K M Chinnaiah, K A Jeyapaul and M C Sampath to visit Kancheepuram, Villupuram, Nagapattinam and Cuddalore districts, the worst hit by the storm which crossed the state coast this morning.