Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says he and Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath are still friends de­spite the un­re­solved farm­ers/hous­ing im­passe. Mooni­lal has re­ject­ed a call by the farm­ers for him to apol­o­gise for the bull­doz­ing of their crops by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) at D'Abadie and Ch­agua­nas dur­ing the East­er week­end. The land is to be used to con­struct hous­es.

Bharath said he was pre­pared to do what­ev­er it took in the in­ter­est of the farm­ers. Ques­tioned whether the im­passe was af­fect­ing the re­la­tions be­tween the two min­is­ters, Dr Mooni­lal said: "We are Cab­i­net col­leagues. We are very cor­dial. We have al­ways had a very warm re­la­tion­ship and noth­ing has changed." He added: "The mat­ter is a de­vel­op­ment chal­lenge that is com­mon to many emerg­ing so­ci­eties. We are both com­mit­ted to our twin de­vel­op­ment ob­jec­tive of af­ford­able and ad­e­quate hous­ing and food se­cu­ri­ty," Bharath said "there will al­ways be con­flict" if there was no clear, de­fin­i­tive land pol­i­cy in T&T. (RL)