PM Modi announces projects worth Rs 13,000 crore in Tamil Nadu

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated projects and laid the foundation stones for new initiatives worth Rs 13,000 crore in Tamil Nadu, with a focus on digital connectivity, industrial growth and trade. He said the projects would create employment opportunities for the state's youth.

“We are inaugurating many completed projects and laying the foundation for new ones. Some will make digital travel easier. Others will strengthen industry and trade. Together, they will create jobs for young people across Tamil Nadu,” Modi said, congratulating the people of the state on the occasion.

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Earlier, the Prime Minister inaugurated the 15-km Poonamallee-Vadapalani stretch of Phase II of the Chennai Metro Rail Project, built at a cost of around Rs 4,900 crore.

Modi also visited the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Research Centre at IIT Madras. He also launched a scientific mission to map more than 100 human brains into three-dimensional atlases at cellular resolution.

The Prime Minister released C-STROKE, an atlas containing more than 1,000 annotated microscopic sections from a stroke-affected brain.

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In his address, Modi also extended Navratri greetings to citizens across the country. He also paid tribute to Bharat Ratna awardees Jayaprakash Narayan and Nanaji Deshmukh on their birth anniversaries, saying their lives and work continued to inspire people to serve the nation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his 25 years in public office had strengthened his faith in the people of India and cooperative federalism. He said he had taken the oath as Gujarat chief minister in October 2001 and had since served as chief minister and prime minister.

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“In my 25 years tenure, my belief has strengthened in two truths of democracy – first, people of my country and second, Cooperative federalism,” Modi said.

He added that he had consistently followed the principle of “state-development to country-development”.

“As the CM I understood expectations of a state, and then as PM I made efforts to fulfil their aspirations,” he said.

Modi said that, as Gujarat chief minister, he had several opportunities to interact with M. Karunanidhi and J. Jayalalithaa. As Prime Minister, he also worked with Jayalalithaa, M. K. Stalin, Edappadi K. Palaniswami and O. Panneerselvam.

He said that while governments changed, but his commitment to Tamil Nadu's development and the welfare of its people remained unchanged.

Modi said he and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay were working to take the state's development forward.

He said urban development was a priority and that urbanisation should be seen as an opportunity, not a challenge. He added that good public transport makes life easier for people.

Modi said better transport requires more than wider roads and called for overall infrastructure development. He said India had expanded its metro network over the past decade.

“In 2014, only 5 cities of India was available – Now, 25 cities have metro services,” he said. Modi said India's metro network has grown from around 250 km in 2014 to more than 1,100 km now.

He said the new Chennai Metro stretch would further expand the network and make daily travel easier for working people, students and senior citizens.

Modi said India could become stronger by strengthening its states. He said the Centre was promoting manufacturing in Tamil Nadu and that campaigns such as Vocal for Local and Make in India were also benefiting the state.