Sunday, November 20 2005 16:53 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Karnataka Chief Minister N Dharam Singh today (Nov 20, 2005) held a meeting with MPs and sought their united effort in mounting pressure on the Centre to get clearance for the state's pending projects including the controversial Metro Rail project, being opposed by his coalition partner Janata Dal (JD) Secular (S).

At the meeting convened ahead of the winter session of the parliament beginning from November 23, an usual exercise undertaken by Singh to request MPs to raise various issues concerning the state during the session, asked them prevail upon the Center to accord early clearance to Metro Rail, sanctioning of Rs 4,897 crore special assistance for flood relief on the model of tsunami among others.

Singh in his opening remarks said several rail and road projects, the demand of a central legislation for regulating admission of students in private professional colleges, granting of special economic powers to North Karnataka by amending article 371 of the constitution and giving classical language status to Kannada were pending with the Center.

He appealed MPs to fight for these demands unitedly in the interest of the state and by setting aside their political party affiliations.

Briefing the press after the meeting, Deputy Chief Minister M P Prakash said, MPs favored that the Government hold such interaction at least 20 days ahead of the parliament session, which would help them to send questions pertaining to state's projects.

Prakash said the Chief Minister has assured to convene one more meeting after the coming winter session.