TN CM announces slew of sops for state government employees

    Chennai, Apr 28 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Monday made a slew of announcements aimed at ensuring the welfare of state government employees and teachers, including announcing a manifold jump in the "marriage advance," besides a 2 per cent DA hike.
    Making the announcements in the state Assembly, the CM also proposed various benefits to pensioners.

    While the "marriage advance" being given to female and male state government employees at present was Rs 10,000 and Rs 6,000, respectively, "it is being increased manifold and government employees and teachers will now be provided Rs 5 lakh," Stalin said.

    He also announced a 2 per cent increase in Dearness Allowance (DA) with effect from April 1, 2025, and said this would benefit about 16 lakh employees, teachers, pensioners, and those availing family pension. This would entail an additional allocation of Rs 1,252 crore annually, the CM informed.

    Lauding the government employees, he said they were the ones implementing the various government welfare schemes and projects that benefit the people.

    He announced resuming the facility of surrendering earned leave for cash benefits that was suspended during the pandemic. "From October 1, 2025, earned leave of upto 15 days can be surrendered to get cash benefit. This follows a request from government employees to implement it from this year. The gesture would benefit about 8 lakh government officials and teachers. The government would allocate an additional sum of Rs 3, 561 crore for this," the Chief Minister.

    Also, Stalin announced an increase in the existing advances for festivals, children's and education. The festival advance would be increased to Rs 20,000 from Rs 1,000 being given now. Similarly, the education advances for vocational courses will be hiked to Rs 1,00,000 while the sum for arts and science and polytechnic would be increased to Rs 50,000.

    The Pongal festival bonus given to state government retired C and D category staff, all types of individual pensioners and family pensioners will be increased from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000. The move would benefit about 4.71 lakh pensioners and family pensioners, costing the government an additional expenditure of Rs 24 crore.

    In order to help pensioners celebrate the festival with their families, the existing festival advance of Rs 4,000 would be enhanced to Rs 6,000 to benefit about 52,000 pensioners. As a result, the government will incur an additional expense of Rs 10 crore.

    In yet another announcement, the CM said the maternity leave will be for one year period from the present nine months.

    A committee will be formed to study the Old Pension Scheme, the Contributory Pension Scheme, and Integrated Pension Scheme and the panel will submit its report with recommendations by September end, he said.

    The nine welfare measures he announced would make the government incur a total additional annual cost of about Rs 5,000 crore.
    On the lines of former CM, the late M Karunanidhi, the "Dravidian model" DMK government will continue to protect government employees and ensure their welfare, Stalin added.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)