Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin’s Slew of Benefits for Minorities

Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin announced a slew of benefits for religious minorities, particularly Muslims, which included the consideration of providing reservation to people from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Most Backward and Backward communities who converted to Islam and raising the upper limit of education loans given away by the Tamil Nadu Minorities Economic Development Corporation to Rs five lakh.

Speaking at a consultative meeting for minorities’ welfare held in the Secretariat on Saturday, Stalin said his government had created a social atmosphere for minorities to live fearlessly in the State and assured to look into any demand placed by them, as it had been doing so long, besides recalling the DMK’s long association with the Muslim community that helped the ushering in of the historic political change in 1967.

Calling the statement by a Union Minister that the Dravidian Model government was dividing people as a joke, he said the government strove to ensure that everyone got everything by fostering inclusive growth that enabled the Muslim community to enjoy its legitimate rights and progress socio-economically in the State.

Stalin said that the names of 11 more convicts who had completed 20 years in prison had been recommended for premature release to the Governor as 10 convicts were recently let off from prisons and the present glitches in getting approval for places of worship and also their renovation would be removed by framing a Standard Operating Procedure (SoP),

Coming out with a long list of the actions taken by the DMK governments, starting with the creation of the Directorate of Minority Welfare in 2017 and the provision of 3.5 per cent exclusive reservation for Muslims during the regime of M Karunanidhi, he said their long time demand for life time recognition for minority institutions would favourably looked into and that a GO had been issued on February 2 to issue religious minority certificate with a lifetime validity.

Among the other announcements that the Chief Minister made at the meeting were extending the eligibility for Pudhumai Pen scheme, under which government school girls enrolling in higher education courses would get Rs 1000 a month as assistance, to Tamil medium students of Muslim aided schools and the serving of free breakfast for children in Classes one to five in the Muslim aided schools.

Some other privileges enjoyed by government schools and colleges would be extended to Muslim aided institutions like the raising of age limit for recruitment of school teachers to 58 years and the regularization of services of college teachers.

The Wakf Board would get a new office and 27 staff, who would be recruited through the TNPSC, and district minority offices had been opened in the five districts of Chennai, Vellore, Villupuram, Tirunelveli and Coimbatore that had a high population of Muslims, he said.