TN Budget: Rs 1,000 per month for girls from govt schools pursuing higher studies

With an allocation of Rs 250 crore for the scheme, it will benefit nearly 5-lakh girl students.

The allocation for education sector this fiscal stand at Rs 36,895.89 crore against Rs 34,181 crore in the last budget. Rajan said that all government schools in the state will be modernised in the next five years with as many as 18,000 new smart classrooms. A total allocation in this regard for the next five years is Rs 7,000 crore.

The document also claims to have brought down the revenue deficit by Rs 7,000 crore from Rs 58,692.68 crore in for 2021-22. The total outstanding debt of the state will increase to Rs 6.53 lakh crore by March 2023, against Rs 5.7 lakh crore this fiscal with a projection of the net public debt for the next financial year at Rs 90,116.52 crore. While the debt-GSDP ratio will stand at 26.29 per cent, which is “within the limits” set by the 15th Finance Commission.

Presented as an e-budget, Rajan, who was a top banker with some of the leading financial institutions abroad before his entry into politics, said it was the application of political and administrative skills that reversed some of the crucial trends this year while the revenue and fiscal deficits against the trend since 2014, under the AIADMK regime, when they were consistently on rising due to financial mismanagement.

The government said it will also bear the complete cost of the undergraduate education of students in IITs, IIMs and AIIMS if they have studied in government schools from 6th to 12th standard.

A subsidy of Rs 100 each to six LPG cylinders to families and disbursal of Rs 1,000 a month to women heads of households were the two major promises from the DMK manifesto that the budget failed to fulfil.

An allocation of Rs 5 crore to publish social reformer EVR Periyar books in 21 Indian and world languages, Rs 82.86 crore for the Tamil Development Department were other announcements.