TN allocated additional Rs 35 cr for Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Pudhumai Penn Scheme
The department further stated that if the scheme extended to the Tamil medium girl students studied in government aided schools as per the announcement of the chief minister in the meeting held regarding the welfare of minorities
Chief Minister MK Stalin at the card distributing event for Tamil-medium students (file photo)
CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu government has allocated additional Rs 35 crore for Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Pudhumai Penn Scheme, financial assistant to Tamil medium girls, who are studying in government aided schools and wanted to pursue higher education.
At present, the scheme is being implemented only for the girl students studying from Class VI to Class XII in government schools.
During the recent state budget speech, finance minister Thangam Thennarasu said that the financial aid scheme will be extended to the girl students studying in government aided schools in Tamil medium and accordingly a sum of Rs 370 crore will be allocated for the implementation of the scheme.
In a government order issued by Jayashree Muralidharan, Secretary Social Welfare Department said that it has sent the proposal stating that the higher education assurance scheme has been launched and the project is successfully implemented in the state with 2.73 lakh beneficiaries. Each beneficiary would get Rs 1,000 per month when then pursue higher education.
The department further stated that if the scheme extended to the Tamil medium girl students studied in government aided schools as per the announcement of the chief minister in the meeting held regarding the welfare of minorities, additional beneficiaries of girls would continue their higher education, through with the beneficiaries and literacy rate of the girls would also increase.
However, the order further said that in Tamil Nadu, as many as 49,664 Tamil medium girl students studying in minority institutions. For extending the scheme to these students the commissioner of social welfare has requested the government to allocate an additional amount of Rs 35.37 crore in 2024-2025.
The order said after considering the request, the commissioner of the department is authorised to incur the expenditure from the fund allocated in the budget estimate (2024-2025) for the implementation of the scheme extended.
The order further said that the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) has been directed to incorporate necessary tools regarding the expansion of scheme in the dedicated software of the scheme.
