CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami was on Sunday conferred an honorary doctorate, “Degree of Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa),” at the 28th convocation of Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute.
This is the first honorary doctorate received by Palaniswami, who became Chief Minister in 2017.
Late Chief Ministers M G Ramachandran, J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi had been conferred multiple honorary doctorates by various universities.
Delivering the key note address, Palaniswami greeted the graduating students and others who received honorary doctorates and said it was a moment to take a pledge to fulfil responsibilities towards the growth of entire mankind. “My responsibilities too have increased with the conferment of the honorary doctorate on me,” he said.
He listed various initiatives taken by his government to improve education at school and college levels.
“A total of `28,957.68 crore has been allotted for school education while higher education has been given `4584.21 crore in the current financial year. We have opened six law colleges at Villupuram, Dharmapuri, Ramanathapuram, Salem, Namakkal and Theni in the last three years,” he said adding that 12 new arts and science colleges, five polytechnic institutions also were opened in the last few years.
The Chief Minister said every year 100 students of government engineering colleges are being sent to foreign countries for 15 days technical training. “About 1350 post graduate seats and 1213 UG seats have been increased in medical colleges in the State.”
University founder chancellor, A C Shanmugam, a former MP and an MLA, said this was the first time the varsity conferred a honorary doctorate on a Chief Minister.
Shanmugam is also the founder of Puthiya Neethi Katchi, an ally of the ruling AIADMK. He contested the recent Vellore Lok Sabha election and lost by a thin margin of over 8,000 votes to DMK candidate.
G Satheesh Reddy, Chairman, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO); S Raja Sabapathy, Director, Ganga Hospitals; Harris Jayaraj, Music Director and Shobana Chandrakumar, actor-cum-classical dancer, were also conferred honorary doctorates.