Lagatar24 Desk
Chennai, Aug 13: The chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M K Stalin, said on Saturday that the government’s spending on health and education cannot be viewed as freebies and that such measures are being provided to the underprivileged and those living on the periphery.
Additionally, he appeared to criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his opposition to freebies, but he avoided further discussion because “it will become politics.”
He said that the Supreme Court has said freebies and welfare scheme were different.
“The expenditure on education and health cannot be freebies. Because education is about knowledge while medicine relates to health. This government wants to implement adequate welfare schemes in both these sectors,” he said.
The TN chief minister listing out the initiatives in Health and Education, including those delivered on doorsteps, said, “These are not freebies (but) social welfare schemes. These are implemented to benefit the poor and those in the fringes.”
Stalin further said, “Some people have now newly emerged with the advice there should be no freebies. We are not bothered about that. If I talk more, it will become politics. So I don’t want to talk more about this.”
Notably, Prime Minister had recently said freebies are a spoke in India’s effort to become self-reliant and also a burden on taxpayer and criticised some opposition parties for engaging in the politics of freebies.
