Tamizh Pudhalvam scheme to empower boy students announced

CHENNAI: Financial assistance of Rs 1,000 per month under Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Puthumai Penn Thittam scheme will also cover Tamil medium-girl students in government-aided schools.

At present the scheme applies only to female students studying from Class VI to Class XII.

With the scheme successful in achieving the objective of increasing enrolment of girls and has now revolutionised the participation of girls in higher educational institutions, Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu in the budget speech said on the same lines, to help boys from a poor and marginalised background, studying in government schools, realise their dreams of higher education and transform them into achievers, a grand scheme “Tamizh Pudhalvan” will be implemented from the coming financial year.

“Under this scheme, boys who have studied in government schools from VI to 12th standard will be provided financial assistance of Rs 1,000 per month in their bank accounts directly”, he said adding “this assistance would enable them to purchase textbooks, general knowledge books and magazines to improve their academic performance”.

According to the Minister, this ambitious scheme will benefit around three lakh students and will be implemented for Rs 360 crore from the coming year.

Welcoming the government’s move to extend the schemes to boy students, P Dhinakaran, deputy secretary, TN School Teachers Welfare Forum, said the scheme would ensure that the dropouts would be drastically reduced.

“At one point, there will not be any dropouts in the coming years”, he said, adding “Many students from economically poor backgrounds will be largely benefited by the scheme,” he said.

Dhinakaran also requested the government that this scheme could also be extended to government-aided schools as it was done in the breakfast scheme. Similarly, S Gnanasekaran, educationist, said that “the scheme will not only ensure zero dropouts but also get more admissions in the government schools.”

He said the financial assistance scheme for school students to improve their living standards.