Jaya reiterates demand for Tsunami warning centre in Chennai

Jaya reiterates demand for Tsunami warning centre in Chennai

Chennai, Jun 28 : Noting that the Centre is planning to set up a 'National Disaster Response Force', the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today suggested that the Centre constitute state-level response teams, providing them 100 per cent financial assistance.

She also reiterated that the Tsunami Warning Centre should be located in Chennai. "I have already written to you about this", she said in her address at the ninth Inter-state Council meeting in Delhi today.

Welcoming the introduction of the Disaster Management Bill, 2005, introduced in Parliament, she said that the Tamil Nadu government was also in the process of preparing a similar legislation on this subject shortly.

She strongly felt that while the Centre preached the mantra of greater decentralisation of powers by states to panchayati raj institutions, "it does not similarly practise decentralisation by providing states with greater powers to be more responsive to the people".

Subjects such as inter-linking of rivers, resolving outstanding issues on the reservation policy, finalisation of the requisite constitutional amendment to provide some flexibility in the pattern of PR institutions, raised in the zonal council, could have been part of the agenda, she said, adding 'this raises the need for closer integration of the functioning of the inter-state council and the zonal councils.

She also reiterated the need for accountability in the functioning of government institutions. "The lower bureaucracy has to be motivated and driven to be people-centric, lest the people perceive it as an oppressive system".

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