It’s raining cash and freebies in poll-bound Tamil Nadu. Chief Minister and ruling DMK president MK Stalin on Sunday announced a Rs 3000 Pongal cash gift for rice ration card holders, in addition to the gift hamper containing raw rice, jaggery, spices and nuts as well as sugar cane for the festival.
An official release said all rice ration card holders and those Sri Lankan Tamils in the refugee camps would get the cash gift of Rs 3000 as part of the Pongal hamper. They can receive this at their respective ration shops, and necessary arrangements have been made for the distribution of free dhotis and sarees together with the gift hamper and cash.
The state exchequer would incur an expenditure of Rs 6,936 crore due to the distribution of gift hamper and cash, the release added. Last year, the government did not pay the cash gift for Pongal, the cultural expression of the Tamils, celebrated for four days in the Tamil month of ‘Thai’, the second week of January.
This comes close on the heels of the state government announcing implementation of the Tamil Nadu Assured Pension Scheme (TAPS) for all government servants and teachers, in place of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). It is a two-decade-long demand of the government servants and employees, for which they have launched protests every year.
Further, the Chief Minister would launch the distribution of Free Laptops to students on Monday (January 5), under the first phase of the ‘Ulagam Ungal Kaiyil’ (World at Your Hands), as part of the digital empowerment of college students. In the first phase, 10 lakh laptops would be distributed, while another 10 lakh in the second phase, an official release said.
The laptops, sourced from global brands including Dell, Acer and HP, are equipped with Inteli3 or AMD Ryzen 3 processors, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD storage, Windows 11, BOSS Linux, MS Office 365 and a 76-month free subscription for the AI-powered Perplexity Pro platform.
With elections on the horizon and the ruling DMK confident of returning to power, the electorate in Tamil Nadu can expect more.