Restructure post matric aid, fund on 60:40 basis: TN CM tells Modi

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to issue suitable directions to the Social Justice Ministry to restructure the Post Matric scholarship scheme with a sharing pattern of 60:40 basis between the Centre and states.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to issue suitable directions to the Social Justice Ministry to restructure the Post Matric scholarship scheme with a sharing pattern of 60:40 basis between the Centre and states. Emphasising that the Post Matric scholarship scheme should be considered "in line" with other Centrally sponsored schemes, and funded with a sharing pattern of 60:40 between the Centre and the States, he said he had already addressed this issue in his earlier letters in 2018 and 2019 to the PM.

In a letter to Modi, Palaniswami said, "I would like to bring to your kind attention an urgent and vital issue concerning Tamil Nadu; namely, the concept of application of committed liability in releasing funds under the Post Matric scholarship scheme to the State." Earlier the expenditure under the scheme at the end of each five-year plan period was taken as the committed liability of the state for the next five-year plan period. Although the practice of 5-year planning was given up after the end of the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-2017), the earlier practice of re-fixing the state's Committed Liability at the end of five years has been continued.

As a result, the committed liability of Tamil Nadu which was Rs 353.55 crore in 2012-13, with effect from 2017- 18, has risen to Rs 1,526.46 crore, he said. Although the state spent Rs 1,689.34 crore on the scheme in 2017-18, Rs 1,910.19 crore in 2018-19 and Rs 2,005.70 crore in 2019-20, it received only Rs 162.88 crore, Rs 383.73 crore and Rs 479.24 crore respectively as Central share for these years, he added.

During this year (2020-21), for a total expected expenditure of Rs 2,110.90 crore, Tamil Nadu will be eligible to receive only Rs 584.44 as Central share. "This has placed an extremely high burden on the state government's finances. It also results in a situation, where what is really a Central sector scheme will be largely funded by the states from their own resources," the chief minister said.

Hence, Palaniswami requested, that the Post Matric scholarship scheme may be funded with a sharing pattern of 60:40 between the Centre and the States, "in line" with other Centrally sponsored schemes. "I request the Prime Minister to kindly issue suitable directions to the Ministry of Social Justice to restructure the Post Matric Scholarship scheme with a sharing pattern of 60:40 basis between the Centre and the States," he said in the letter.

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