CHENNAI: Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Friday scrapped one more pet scheme of the DMK regime — the Free Colour TV Scheme — and cancelled the orders placed at the fag end of the previous regime for procurement of 7.48 lakh CTVs.Besides, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced that 1.27 lakh CTVs already procured would be distributed to orphanages, government schools, village panchayats, government hospitals, health centres and anganwadis in the state.Replying to the discussion on the motion of thanks to the Governor’s address in the State Assembly, the CM charged that the CTV scheme was implemented by the DMK regime only for the welfare of the family members of former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi. For procuring CTVs for the first five phases, the DMK government had allocated Rs 3,687 crore and each television set was procured at an average cost of Rs 2,265. But those who have received these CTVs had to cough up Rs 4,000 crore per year as cable TV charges to the firms owned by Karunanidhi’s family members — Dayanidhi Maran, Kalanidhi Maran and Durai Dayanidhi. As such, the people paid a huge sum of Rs 20,000 crore to Karunanidhi’s family as cable TV charges during the past five years.Jayalalithaa said in January this year that the previous DMK regime had ordered procurement of 10 lakh more CTVs for the sixth phase and so far, 1.27 lakh CTVs have been procured.The AIADMK government has already scrapped the Kalaignar Housing Scheme and the Kalaignar Insurance Scheme for Life-saving Treatments citing many irregularities in their implementation.
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