Chennai: Tamilnadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami today announced that tuition and hostel fees would be paid by the government for government school students who were allotted seats in medical and dental colleges under the 7.5 per cent horizontal quota.
In a statement here, he announced immediate creation of a revolving fund to financially help NEET-qualified State government school students, who were allotted seats in private medical colleges and dental colleges under the 7.5 per cent quota.
Earlier in the day, Opposition DMK President M K Stalin announced that the DMK would fully bear the educational expenses of these students.
Reacting to it, the Chief Minister accused him of enacting a ‘political drama’. Stating that the government school students do not have to wait for scholarship funds, Palaniswami said he has set up a revolving fund in the Tamilnadu Medical Services Corporation to ensure that tuition and hostel fees could be paid to the college administration from the fund.
Palaniswami said while announcing the 7.5 per cent reservation for government school students in admissions to medical courses in Tamilnadu on November 18, he had said that Post Matric Scholarship and other financial aid will be provided due to the financial difficulties faced by poor government school students, including those from Corporation schools, Municipality schools, Adi Dravidar schools, Tribal Welfare schools, Kallar Denotified Tribes School and Forest Department schools.
He said it was well known that it was the State government which has helped poor students realise their dreams of becoming doctors by announcing, on 18 November, that their tuition and hostel fees would be paid by the State government.