CHENNAI: Respoding to the demands from various parties in the state Assembly on Thursday to include Rs 1,000 cash component in the Pongal gift hamper, Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu said the state government avoided it this year due to financial crunch, especially due to the non-allocation of funds by the union government.
He noted that the government has already allocated Rs 280 crore for the Pongal package.
Pointing out that the Tamil Nadu government sought a total of Rs 37,817 crore towards disaster relief from the union government, he said the central government released only Rs 276 crore, that too from the State Disaster Response Fund.
He further said Rs 2,151.59 crore, which has to be released by the centre under the Samagra Shiksha scheme, has not yet been released this year.
Criticising the DMK government for not including cash, AIADMK MLA A Govindasamy said the previous AIADMK government had distributed Rs 2,500 to each family as part of the Pongal festival gift.
Minister for Cooperation R Sakkarapani, however, said the Pongal gift scheme was first introduced by former chief minister and DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi and pointed out that even AIADMK did not include cash in 2017 and 2018.
Minister Duraimurugan also retorted that AIADMK gave cash only during election season. “We don’t have elections now; we’ll see when they come,” he said.