Modern Tamil Nadu’s development trajectory is anchored in the long-standing Dravidian commitment that strengthening women’s capabilities is the surest way to strengthen society. This commitment has been organised into a coherent life-course framework that supports a woman as a student, worker, caregiver, entrepreneur, and senior citizen, embedding dignity, opportunity, and agency at each stage. This continuity of purpose is reflected in the women-centred programmes at the core of development by the state government, designed to deliver clear social and economic returns.
The Chief Minister’s flagship Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thittam (KMUT) exemplifies this approach. The scheme provides a rights-based entitlement by directly transferring Rs 1,000 per month directly to 1.295 crore women, at an annual outlay of roughly Rs 15,540 crore. KMUT recognises women as central economic actors within the household and provides a stable buffer against economic volatility.
The Vellum Thamizh Pengal event on December 12 is set to expand the scheme to include lakhs more women.
Within this framework, Tamil Nadu focuses much on education. The 7.5% horizontal reservation in professional courses ensures that students from government schools secure entry into engineering and medical programmes with full waivers of tuition and hostel fees. The Pudhumai Penn scheme adds a monthly scholarship of Rs 1,000 to girls from government schools; it currently supports about 4.13 lakh students and eases the financial pressures that often force them to drop out.
The Chief Minister’s Research Fellowship provides a monthly stipend and an annual contingency grant that enable 180 women, including married women and those from marginalised backgrounds, to complete doctoral research.
As education expands, mobility determines whether women can access and sustain the opportunities they earn. The impact of the Vidiyal Payanam scheme is reflected in women's mobility. From May 2021 to August 2025, women made nearly 769 crore cashless journeys on state buses, reducing transport costs and easing daily access to work, education, markets, and essential services. This has supported sustained participation in schooling and employment, more regular healthcare use, and a wider presence of women in public spaces.
As an inclusion measure, free travel under Vidiyal Payanam is also extended to differently abled people and their attendants in hilly regions.
The state’s cancer screening initiative invites women aged 30 and above for free cervical and breast cancer screening once every three years; 34.6 lakh invitations have been issued, and more than a thousand confirmed cancer cases have been identified.
Makkal Thedi Maruthuvam reinforces this by promising decentralised care through trained women health volunteers who visit households to provide screening for NCDs, medicine delivery, and palliative support. The programme has reached 1.40 crore women beneficiaries and integrates breast and cervical cancer screening into routine outreach. Building on this preventive infrastructure, the government has rolled out a free cervical cancer (HPV) vaccination programme costing Rs 38 crore, aiming to protect against cervical cancer as a key public health measure.
Financial resilience against health shocks is secured through the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme, which provides cashless treatment of up to Rs 5 lakh per family annually. Since its inception in 2009, it has covered 1.55 crore people, including 64.68 lakh women, and functions as a buffer against catastrophic medical expenditure.
Maternal health is supported through the Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy Maternity Benefit Scheme, which offers Rs 18,000 and nutrition kits to encourage institutional deliveries and safer post-natal care, and has benefited 32.74 lakh mothers. Acute emergencies are addressed by the Innuyir Kappom scheme, which guarantees free trauma care for the first 48 hours after accidents.
It is important to advance welfare to economic agency. Tamil Nadu is pushing women’s welfare toward real economic agency. The Vetri Nichayam programme offers at least 100 hours of free skills training for unemployed, widowed, and destitute women. Currently, 66,798 women are in training and 5,899 have been trained and placed, opening access to both traditional and non-traditional jobs.
Digital and employability skilling through Naan Mudhalvan has issued 41 lakh certifications, driving a 35% rise in women’s higher-education enrolment.
Entrepreneurship schemes expand capital access. The Annal Ambedkar Business Champion Scheme has supported 941 SC and ST women entrepreneurs, and NEEDS has assisted 1,739 women-led industrial units. StartupTN provides seed support for innovation-led ventures, while the Nannilam Magalir Nila Udamai Thittam helps Adi Dravidar and tribal women purchase farmland, addressing generational assetlessness.
The collective enterprise of Women’s Self-Help Groups, one of Tamil Nadu’s enduring economic institutions, continues to be a significant channel for credit. Women’s Self-Help Groups have been linked to Rs 1.34 lakh crore in bank credit, opening wide pathways for microenterprise and financial resilience. In the last four years, 59,616 new SHGs with 7.58 lakh members have been formed.
To deepen market access, the government has introduced Mathi stores and the Mathi Santhai e-commerce platform, integrating SHG products into neighbourhood outlets and online markets, lowering entry barriers. Recently, a mobility incentive allowing SHG members to travel up to 100 kilometres free on government buses to transport and sell their goods was also introduced.
To sustain these gains, Tamil Nadu recognises that women’s economic participation depends on safety, mobility, and secure living conditions. The amendment to the Shops and Establishments Act allowing women to work night shifts, with mandatory employer-provided transport, facilitates regulated inclusion in a twenty-four-hour economy.
SIPCOT’s integrated industrial townships offer residential options near employment hubs, while Thozhi Vidudhi, operated by the Thozhi Working Women Hostels Corporation, runs 19 hostels and is building 27 more.
The final layer of the life-course framework supports women in vulnerable and informal work. The Domestic Workers Welfare Board provides formal recognition to a predominantly female workforce that has long been excluded from regulation and social protection. Through pensions, educational assistance, and other benefits, the Board has disbursed Rs 39.36 crore.
Empowerment is the cumulative outcome of deliberate and interconnected support sustained across a lifetime. Enhancing women’s security, whether through rights-based entitlements, workplace reforms, or welfare provisions, is treated as central to Tamil Nadu’s developmental strategy by Chief Minister MK Stalin.
The pursuit of gender equality is necessarily a long-term undertaking, unfolding through steady institutional effort. The programmes described here constitute the essential building blocks of that effort and signal a clear, deliberate trajectory for modern Tamil Nadu within the Dravidian model of inclusive governance.
Yazhini PM is the Spokesperson and Coordinator of the Women's Wing Social Media of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). Views expressed here are the author’s own.