Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Tuesday called for transferring education back to the State List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. He said that only this would help to abolish the centralised examinations like NEET. Education, originally a State subject, was moved to the Concurrent List by the Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency.
Hoisting the national flag at Fort St. George on Independence Day, Mr. Stalin recalled the stand taken by former Chief Ministers C.N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi on State autonomy. “All subjects that interact with people directly should be transferred to the State List. Especially, education should be transferred [back] to the State List,” he said.
The Tamil Nadu government would constitute a welfare board for workers attached to service-providers, such as Ola, Uber, Swiggy, and Zomato, who have been serving their consumers in major cities, Mr. Stalin said.
The Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme would be expanded to all State-run schools across Tamil Nadu from August 25 and he would visit a school at Thirukkuvalai for inaugurating the scheme that day, he said.
Mr. Stalin said the scheme to provide a subsidy of ₹1 lakh to women autorickshaw drivers would be expanded to cover 500 women.
The monthly pension for freedom fighters and their families would be increased from ₹10,000 to ₹11,000, he said. He also announced that the Agricultural College and Research Institute, functioning under Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, at Killikulam in Thoothukudi district would be named after late freedom fighter V.O. Chidambaranar.
Mr. Stalin said the government would implement a programme to train 10,000 ex-servicemen to help them get employment. About 55,000 vacancies in government departments would be filled this financial year. The Kalaignar Centenary Park would be established on a 6.09-acre plot on Cathedral Road in Chennai at a cost of ₹25 crore.
The Chief Minister also announced that the free bus travel for women would henceforth be called ‘Vidiyal Payanam’.
