Centre is biased against Tamil Nadu in funds allocation, infrastructure projects, says Thangam Thennarasu

The Centre has consistently shown a political bias against Tamil Nadu by withholding funds meant for education and social welfare projects and by not sanctioning infrastructure projects, Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu said in the Assembly on Friday.

He was replying to discussions on the first supplementary demands for grants. He said the Centre had withheld nearly ₹4,000 crore earmarked for school education and released only ₹450 crore for implementing the Right to Education Act. The State government had been paying for teacher salaries, student programmes, and school infrastructure from its own resources.

Criticising the National Education Policy, he said, “The Centre is attempting to impose Hindi on Tamil Nadu, a State that leads the country in higher education and ranks first in several indicators. Is this not a step-motherly attitude that undermines the aspirations of young children?”

Mr. Thennarasu said the Union Cabinet continued approving expressway and other highway projects worth thousands of crores for States such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Maharashtra. However, no such large-scale projects were sanctioned for Tamil Nadu.

He also alleged bias in the allocation of railway projects to Southern Railway. “While the Centre allocated ₹19,068 crore to Tamil Nadu for railway projects over the last three years, it allocated ₹19,858 crore to Uttar Pradesh this financial year alone. The Tamil Nadu government’s proposals for Metro Rail projects in Coimbatore and Madurai have been pending with the Centre for nearly 20 months. In contrast, Metro Rail projects were implemented in cities such as Agra, Kanpur, Noida, Pune, and Surat,” he said.

The Finance Minister alleged that the Centre had also withheld ₹975 crore from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, affecting the livelihood of 75 lakh women in the State. He said ₹3,709 crore meant for the Jal Jeevan Mission to provide piped water supply in the State was also pending. “Tamil Nadu has 6.1% of the country’s population, yet the Centre devolves only 4% [from the Central tax pool] to the State. Is this consistent with the spirit of cooperative federalism,” he questioned.