Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin announced a plethora of measures for minorities in the anvil like extending the benefits of ‘Pudumai Penn’ scheme to Tamil medium students of the government aided minority schools and providing free breakfast for children of classes one to five in aided minority schools in rural areas.
Apart from these two measures that could be expected to be announced in the Annual budget, Stalin also promised a slew of other benefits to the Christian community while addressing a minority welfare consultative meeting in Chennai on Tuesday.
Attended by Christian religious leaders, chairman of the Minorities Commission Peter Alphonse and MLA Inigo Irudhyaraj, the meeting was called to discuss the various problems faced by the community on various fronts like certain rules impeding the ushering in of innovative measures to tide over the scarcity of space in cemeteries.
After listing out the various schemes implemented by his government aimed at helping the minorities like the setting up of a welfare board for preachers and church workers, opening of hostels and serving special meals on festivals and increasing the subsidy for nuns and others undertaking the tour to Holy Land.
Stalin assured the Christian leaders that the validity of the ‘Religious Minority’ status certificate that was now issued for minority institutions would be made indefinite and there would not be a need for them to renew it every five years as it was now.
He also assured a wide range of changes in various rules and regulations that were now binding minority institutions and NGOs. A separate website would be launched for NGOs and the procedures for registration, renewal and applying for funds and subsidies would be simplified.
Many other rules relating to transfer of staff in aided minority schools and the minimum age for recruitment would be rationalized and registration and renewal of homes and hostels would be issued without delay and procedures for applying for benefits like subsidy from the government would be simplified with the launch of a website, he said.
Benefits enjoyed by government schools like the setting up of hi-tech labs and others like Vanavil mandram would be slowly extended to aided minority schools too and a Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) would be brought out to remove the impediments in seeking permission for setting up places of worship and also renovating them, he said.
Eligibility for membership in the preachers and church workers welfare board would soon be relaxed soon, guidelines for availing benefits to undertake pilgrimage to Holy Land would be framed by the month end and a web portal would be launched by the month end to enable minority institutions seeking permission, Stalin said.
