Chennai, Aug 12 (IANS): The Tamil Nadu government has directed that the school education helpline 14417 be extended to handle the queries about the Tamil Pudhalvan scheme.

The helpline has now commenced running 24x7 to address the increasing number of calls about the scheme, which offers Rs 1,000 every month to college-going boys.

Tamil Nadu School Education Department officials told IANS that 14417 was converted to a 24X7 helpline from August 5.

Tamil Pudhalvan was launched on August 9. This scheme aims to help boys who studied in government and government-aided schools from Classes 6 to 12 in their higher education. The state government is successfully running the Pudhumai Penn scheme which is providing Rs 1000 monthly assistance to girl students to pursue higher education. The scheme was launched in September 2022 and has led to a high volume of enrolment of girl students in higher education.

Education department officials said that the application portal is open full-time and there have been many calls regarding the scheme.

Earlier the school education department officials only guided the candidates in getting the help required. The conversion and correction of the details, if unable to be carried out by the candidate, would be taken care of by the Tamil Nadu E-Governance Agency (TNeGA).

The officials handling the helpline have also been calling up government school students to ensure they are pursuing higher studies.

There are about 90,000 students to call, and the department has called 20,000 of them.

An education department official said that 900 students have not pursued higher education as some of them had lost both their parents.

Some others have either begun working or are disinterested in further studies.