Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa’s narcissism got bloated yet another time as she has decided to force down ‘Amma mineral water’ down the parched Tamil throats, allegedly to ensure quality and affordable drinking water to the poor and middle-class.
The Amma brand of bottle water is priced Rs 10 for a one-litre bottle, as against Rs 15 by the Railways and Rs 20 by private players, and will bottled by units, to be set up by the state transport corporations, Jayalalithaa said in a statement. She claimed that the government initiative would be a boon to the people, especially for those in Chennai who were left in the lurch by a recent strike by packaged drinking water firms after the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board shut down 92 bottling plants operating without licence. The water bottles would be made available in buses plying in long distance routes, at min bus terminus, she said. After the official launch of the first unit on the occasion of the late chief minister and her party founder CN Annadurai's birth anniversary on September 15, nine more water production units would be established across the state, she said.
The mineral water initiative is the latest in a series of so-called pro-poor measures taken by her government to provide relief to the people reeling under the spiralling price rise. 'Amma canteens' that serve breakfast, lunch and dinner at subsidised rates and vending outlets selling vegetables at subsidised prices are among the measures. Jayalalithaa defended her pro-poor programmes, saying her government had to take such initiatives as the prices kept shooting up because of the "wrong economic policies" of the Centre.
