Centre will not shift CIPET head office from Chennai

Chennai: The Centre does not plan to shift the head office of the Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET) from Chennai and instead will set up an alternative headquarters in New Delhi.
On Wednesday, Union minister for chemicals and fertilisers Ananth Kumar told reporters in Delhi that the Centre also plans to open regional headquarters of CIPET to support its expansion.
"The Chennai headquarters of CIPET will continue. Along with the Chennai headquarters, there is a need for establishing another alternative headquarters in Delhi also to cater to the entire country," Kumar told a news channel.
He added that the Centre plans to set up more CIPET centres. "Earlier, we had 23 centres training 44,000 students. Now, the Modi government has taken the number to 39 centres. There is a proposal to add more. The number of students being trained has increased to 65,000. We want to increase it to one lakh," he said.
He added that he has requested Mansukh Mandaviya (minister of state for chemicals and fertilisers) to visit Chennai CIPET.
Later, in separate statements, Union Minister of State Pon Radhakrishnan and Tamilisai Sounderrajan, BJP state president, said they had taken up the matter with the Union ministry and that CIPET will not be shifted to Delhi but will be expanded.
Meanwhile, the United Forum of CIPET Unions, in a statement, said that they are against the move to set up another headquarters in Delhi, as "there can be only one headquarters for an organisation."
Several political leaders from TN recently opposed the proposal to shift the CIPET headquarters out of Chennai. DMK chief M Karunanidhi and Opposition leader M K Stalin had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw the proposal. PMK chief S Ramadoss, MDMK leader Vaiko, CPI(M) state secretary G Ramakrishnan, CPI state secretary R Mutharasan, also expressed their views against it.