KALLAKURICHI: The 38 children who had lost one or both their parents in the Kallakurichi hooch tragedy last year, and had not received the monthly allowance announced by the Tamil Nadu government for the past few months, were credited with the pending amount within three hours after TNIE brought the issue to the notice of the government.
When TNIE visited Karunapuram, which accounted for 38 of the 69 people who died in the hooch tragedy this week last year, it learnt that many of the affected children had not received the monthly allowance from the state.
According to the government, four children had lost both their parents while 34 lost one of their parents. The state government had announced a monthly allowance of Rs 5,000 each for the four children, and Rs 4,000 each for the 34 others. The allowances will be credited until the children turn 18, the government had said.
TNIE learnt that while the four orphaned children had not received their monthly allowance for the past four months since March 2025, the remaining 34 had not received the money for the past nine months since October 2024.
The four orphaned children included a girl and two boys, aged between 14 and 17, from the same family, who lost their parents R Suresh (41) and S Vadivukkarasi (39) in the tragedy. Vadivukkarasi had accidentally consumed a small quantity of the methanol-laced liquor that Suresh had left in a cup.
‘Tech issues cause delay in fund release’
The remaining child, a five-year-old boy, lost his father in the tragedy while his mother had died a few years ago due to illness.
Two boys, aged six and seven, were left without parents to care for after her father G Praveen (28) died in the tragedy since their mother had separated from the family a few years ago. However, since the mother is alive and her marriage with Praveen has not been legally annulled, they have been considered to have lost one of their parents, along with the 32 other children.
On Saturday, TNIE brought the issue of the delay in disbursing the allowances to the knowledge of senior officials in the state, including those from the social welfare department, and officers in the district administration.
The senior state-level officials, who said they had personally monitored the disbursal of the amount in the initial few months, assured to check the status immediately. Acknowledging that there had been some technical issues in the release of funds without elaborating much, the officials said the amount would be credited by Saturday. Some two hours later, the officials said that the entire amount for all the pending months had been credited to the accounts of the children. TNIE verified this with a group of children.
AIADMK, the principal opposition party, which announced a monthly allowance of Rs 5,000 to the children who lost their parents, have been making the payments as promised to the families of Suresh and Praveen.
(With inputs from Subhashini Vijayakumar)