The DMK government in Tamil Nadu has announced that it will resume the Marriage Assistance Scheme that was stopped by the previous ADMK regime led by Edappadi Palaniswami in 2019. After the heated debates in the assembly session amid the demand for grant proceedings, Tamil Nadu Minister of Social Welfare and Women Empowerment, Geetha Jeevan has on Tuesday announced in the assembly that the scheme will be resumed as the Chief Minister has allocated funds to resurrect the scheme.

Marriage Assistance Scheme was one of the flagship projects of late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and it was implemented by the Tamil Nadu government in May 2011 under her reign. The scheme has aimed to provide gold and financial assistance for marriage and it had been implemented under the watch of the Social Welfare Department. Under the scheme, marriage assistance of Rs 25,000 and eight grams of gold will be given to brides who had studied 10th and 12th.

For the degree and diploma holders, Rs 50,000 and eight grams of gold will be awarded for the marriage and the scheme was framed with the objective of helping financially poor parents for their daughter's marriage. On Tuesday, when the assembly resumed the ongoing budget session, ADMK legislator Sundar Rajan has said that the marriage assistance scheme, that was brought by the ADMK, has been stopped.

Replying to the legislator, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan has said that the scheme was stopped by the ADMK for the past three years and now, the DMK government is taking measures to resume and streamline the scheme. While Sundar Rajan had claimed that the scheme was stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Thiagarajan has rebutted his statement and said that the scheme was stopped even before the pandemic and the finance minister has noted that he had asked the ADMK government while he was in the opposition to begin the scheme. 

Speaking about the matter, Tamil Nadu Minister of Social Welfare, Geetha Jeevan has said the marriage assistance scheme was stopped by the ADMK regime in March 2019 and over 3.30 lakh applications had been pending in the scheme. By stating that besides increasing the quantity of gold to eight grams in 2016, she said that the then ADMK government had failed to allocate funds for the scheme. As the DMK has come to power, the government is going to start the scheme as Chief Minister MK Stalin has allotted Rs 232 crore for the scheme. It must be noted that recently, the DMK government has announced new guidelines and criterium in the scheme as a measure of ensuring that the scheme has fully been benefitting the poor people.