Centre suffering from "policy paralysis", alleges Jayalalithaa

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today charged the UPA government with suffering from "policy paralysis" and said it was "so much struggling with internal squabblings" that it could not even look into "livelihood issues" such as the Cauvery river water problem.

The AIADMK chief said her repeated pleas to the Centre and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding that the 2007 final verdict of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal be notified in the Central gazette had not been heeded to.

"I had written to the honourable Prime Minister on May 19 seeking to convene meeting of the Cauvery River Authority. The Centre has not taken any action. It looks like the Centre has no time to focus on people's issues as it is struggling with internal squabbles created by its (Congress) alliance parties," she said in a statement here.

"Therefore, the government is suffering from policy paralysis resulting in not even being able to look at the livelihood issues like the cauvery river water problem", she said.

In her letter to Singh in May, Jayalalithaa had charged Karnataka with "unjustly utilising" Cauvery water for summer irrigation and asked the Prime Minister to convene a meeting of the Cauvery River Authority to discuss the issue.