Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thittam is not a benefit, but a right that recognises historically unpaid women’s labour: T.N. CM Stalin

CM M.K. Stalin launched Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thittam in Dharmapuri, providing women heads of families with a monthly financial assistance of ₹1,000. The scheme is part of the 'Dravidian Model' of Periyar, Anna and Kalaignar, which began in 1929 with a resolution for equal property rights for women. 35,923 camps are registering applications for the scheme, with money going directly to bank accounts.

A little over three decades after the launch of the Self Help Group Movement for Women in Dharmapuri in 1989, the district became the site for the launch of registration for yet another flagship programme of the DMK government, the Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thittam (women’s basic income scheme) that provides a monthly financial assistance of ₹1,000 for eligible woman heads of families. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin launched the camps for registration of applications for the scheme, in Thoppur, on Monday, July 24, 2023. 

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The event was flagged off with the launching of camps for the registration of applications of women, before the scheme is rolled out for implementation on September 15, 2023, on Dravidian stalwart C. N. Annadurai’s birth anniversary. 

“This is the soil where the seeds to women’s self respect and self-reliance were strewn through the SHG movement in 1989 by Kalaignar(late T.N. CM M. Karunanidhi), and this is from where recognition of women’s unpaid labour through an assured income of ₹1,000 per month shall also begin,” Mr. Stalin said, launching the application registration camps. According to him, the Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thittam will, for the first time, recognise women’s unpaid labour and make women on the margins self-reliant and economically independent.

The scheme is being rolled out with a budgetary allocation of ₹7,000 crore this year, will be augmented to ₹12,000 crore in the following budget, he said. 

Stating that the scheme, an election promise, was delayed due to the dire fiscal condition of the State, when his government took over amidst the pandemic, Mr. Stalin said, the scheme’s objective flowed from the string of women-centric programmes [his government was implementing] starting with the free bus rides for women, which was one of the first files he signed in May 2021.  “The free bus ride for women was implemented despite the Transport Department being the most cash-strapped of all departments.  Today, over 36 lakh women are benefiting, and women have taken 283 crore free bus rides,” Mr. Stalin said.

“Studies have shown that women save ₹800 to ₹1,000 per month from free bus rides, and improved their household savings. This is the ‘Dravidian Model’ that we learnt from Periyar, Anna and Kalaignar and strive to emulate,” the Chief Minister said.