Date:01/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/07/01/stories/2007070160830800.htm

Tamil Nadu

Jayalalithaa clarifies on Kodanadu estate

Special Correspondent

“Structures, which were there when Britishers ran the estate,
still exist”

CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary and former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Saturday said no building in the Kodanadu tea estate, in which she was a partner, had been constructed without obtaining permission.

In a detailed press release, she said DMK leaders were making allegations that buildings were coming up without obtaining permission as per law.

Terming this completely false, she said the structures which were there when Britishers were running the estate, still existed.

After she became a partner in the estate, proper permission had been obtained even for the new small structures. The wealth tax was also being paid. Similarly, permission was obtained as early as in March 1995 for constructing a new house in the estate.

The AIADMK leader said allegations had been levelled that 2000 trees were cut for building the new house. No tree was cut in the place where the building was coming up. An old bungalow which was constructed during the period of a British owner of the estate was demolished and the new structure was coming up there.

The old trees around it still stood. Permission was taken to fell more than 30-year old and diseased Silver Oak trees. But the new government that took over in the State last year did not permit the removal of the felled trees from the estate.

Ms. Jayalalithaa said defamatory information was being spread that the new house being constructed had 90 rooms.

She said she would initiate legal action against those who levelled such false allegations.