The two-day State executive committee meeting of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which concluded here on Saturday, urged the State Government to conduct counselling for engineering college admissions in Tiruchi, Madurai and Coimbatore, apart from Chennai.
The meeting said, till last year, the counselling was held in four cities simultaneously. The decision to conduct it only in Chennai from the current year would be inconvenient to students from the districts. They would incur heavy expenditure during the course of the entire process.
The meeting also expressed concern over the recent amendment to the local bodies act giving cheque signing powers jointly to local body chiefs and officers authorised by the State Government. Before the amendment, the powers were vested with local body chiefs and their deputies.
The Government had appointed a high-power committee to review the powers of the local bodies.
At this juncture, the amendment would deprive the local bodies of their powers. The meeting urged the Government to withdraw the amendment.
The party also decided to take out a rally in support of Arundhathiyars, a Dalit group, on June 12. The party felt that the community was being harassed by caste Hindus.
State executive committee member J. Hemachandran presided over the meeting, in which party secretary N. Varadarajan, committee members R. Umanath, T.K. Rengarajan, A.K. Padmanabhan, and U. Vasuki participated.
