School education minister N. R. Sivapathi on Tuesday alleged that the previous DMK government had spent only Rs 55 lakh on Tamil books of the allotted Rs 89 crore. “A sum of Rs 87 crore was spent on buying English books. So much for the former chief minister’s love for Tamil,” Sivapathi said.
Responding to CPI MLA Arumugam’s question on the government’s reaction to Karunanidhi’s threat of self-immolation if the library was destroyed, Sivapathi said the government had no intention of destroying the library. “The library has been constructed on 3 lakh square feet land but the library complex occupies only 41,000 square feet. The CM decided to convert it to super-specialty pediatric hospital only with the intention of putting the building to good use.”
The minister also said Rs 128 crore was sanctioned for the library but the government allotted only Rs 20 crore. “The remaining money was taken by districts. So the construction of Anna library had affected the functioning of district libraries too.”
The minister said the monthly maintenance of the library costs around Rs 50 lakh and keeping these factors in mind, the government had decided to convert it into a hospital.
Reacting to Karunanidhi’s threat of self-immolation, Sivapathi said Periyar had once said that self-immolation was against rationalism. “The threat only shows that they have probably forgotten Periyar” the minister said.