The Tamil Nadu government has increased the period of maternity leave for women government employees to 12 months, from the existing nine months. The announcement was made by state Finance Minister PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan during his budget speech on Friday, August 13. The 12 months of paid leave is applicable to women employees with less than two surviving children and will come into effect from July 1, 2021. This was one of the election promises made by the DMK ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections.
The Tamil Nadu Finance Minister also announced other schemes for the welfare of government employees. The lumpsum grant from the Family Security Fund paid to the family of a government employee who dies while in service has been increased to Rs 5 lakhs. The Tamil Nadu government was previously giving Rs 3 lakh to the kin of deceased state government employees.
The increase in the Dearness Allowance (DA) given to government servants will be applicable from April 1, 2022. In April 2020, the Tamil Nadu government had notified that the DA will be frozen at the current rates till July 2021. Tamil Nadu increases the DA every six months, and the last increase was at 17%.
Friday marked the first Budget that the DMK-led Tamil Nadu government presented after coming to power. The Budget was presented just days after PTR presented a white paper on the state's finances, to emphasise the dire fiscal situation in the state. The report had called for reforms in order to break the ‘vicious cycle of increasing debt and interest costs’.
Meanwhile, the opposition party AIADMK staged a walkout and were not present in the Assembly when the Budget was being presented.
In Friday’s Budget meeting, a slash in the price of petrol in Tamil Nadu by Rs 3 was also announced. Prior to that, petrol across Tamil Nadu was priced at Rs 102.49 per litre and diesel at Rs 94.39 per litre. This move is expected to cause a revenue loss of Rs 1,160 cr to the state exchequer.