BUDGET THAT COUNTS ALL

Amid language war with the centre and with just a year left for the Tamil Nadu Assembly poll, the DMK government's last full-budget stayed true to its theme of 'everything for everyone' and gave the pride of place for Tamil.

- T MURUGANANANDHAM @ Chennai

The ruling DMK has resisted the temptation to go for big-bang announcements, perhaps constrained by its financial situation, and appears to have gone for targeted interventions in key sectors while maintaining the existing allocations for its flagship social-security measures.

An exception was the allocation of ₹2,000 crore for 2025-26 to revive the free distribution of laptops to students, a flagship scheme of the previous AIADMK government, which had been stopped for the past five years. Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu, who presented the budget on Friday, said 20 lakh students of government-run institutions will either get a tablet or a laptop in the next two years. It is hard to miss the political significance as the targeted beneficiaries are likely to be first-time voters in the 2026 polls.

To showcase the excellence of Tamil culture to the world, new archaeological excavations in eight locations, Indus Valley Cultural Gallery in Chennai, Agaram - Museum of Languages in Madurai, World Tamil Olympiad competition every year, and deep-sea excavations along coastal Tamil Nadu have been proposed in the budget.