Chennai, Mar 18 (IANS): Tamil Nadu government on Friday announced a revolutionary financial assistance of Rs 1,000 per month for girl students who had studied in its schools to encourage them to pursue higher education.

The government postponed the ruling party DMK's poll promise of Rs 1,000 per month for the women.

Presenting the budget for 2022-23, Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan said the enrolment ratio of girl students from government schools in higher education is very low.

Considering that the government has decided to pay a sum of Rs 1,000 per month to all girl students who studied from classes 6 to 12 in government schools directly into their bank account till the uninterrupted completion of their undergraduate degree, diploma and ITI courses.

The students will be eligible for this in addition to other scholarships, Rajan said.

Through this programme, approximately 6,00,000 girl students can potentially benefit each year. For this new scheme, an amount of Rs 698 crore has been allotted in this Budget," Rajan said.

For this purpose, the government has transformed the marriage assistance welfare scheme Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Memorial Marriage Assistance Scheme as the Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Higher Education Assurance Scheme.

That apart, Rajan said in order to motivate Government school students to aspire to join premier higher education institutions like Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Science and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the Government will bear the full cost of their undergraduate education.

"The students who have studied in Government schools from classes 6 to 12 will be eligible to avail this assistance," Rajan said.

In order to promote education in Tamil medium, school kits, including textbooks and notebooks, which are being provided to students studying in government schools will be extended to students of Classes 1 to 10 in private unaided schools which teach exclusively in Tamil medium, from this year onwards, at an estimated cost of Rs 15 crore.

According to Rajan, the existing schemes of EVR Maniammaiyar Memorial Widow's Daughter Marriage Assistance Scheme, Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy Memorial Inter-Caste Marriage Assistance Scheme, Annai Teresa Orphan Girls Marriage Assistance Scheme and Dr Dharmambal Ammaiyar Memorial Widow Remarriage Assistance Scheme will continue to be implemented without any change.