PMK demands special welfare schemes in TN's northern districts

CHENNAI: A day after DT Next published a story on the Tamil Nadu government's initiative to improve educatioal parameters in 44 blocks with low pass percentage, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder leader S Ramadoss on Tuesday joined the issue and appreciated the DMK government for coming forward to implement several schemes for improving education standards in the northern parts of the State.

Reacting on the subject PMK leader lauded the government initiatives to raise the education parameters in 44 identified educationally backward blocks mostly spread over north Tamil Nadu.

The PMK leader in a statement said the State government should realise that it was 'just a tip of the iceberg'.

Expressing the importance to improve the educationally backward blocks by involving experts from IIT, Ramadoss said, "The government has identified only 44 educationally backward blocks and even if it identifies 200 such blocks, 90% will be in the northern parts of the State".

Claiming that there were several educationally backward blocks, which were yet to be identified, the PMK founder said that all the developments in the State should be equally distributed to all its regions.

"Starting from Cuddalore and Ariyalur and in western districts such as Dharmapuri, Salem besides southside region Ramanathapuram have not fully experienced the developments," he claimed and added that the government should implement special schemes in those districts, which was already mentioned in the shadow budget released by PMK recently.

He said both state and the Centre should work together for the upliftment of the northern districts of Tamil Nadu by constituting a separate development board.