Chennai: AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa has taken oath as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister for the sixth time. She was sworn in for a second consecutive tenure along with 28 ministers. It is a feat no one has achieved since her mentor Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran over 30 years ago.
This is her fourth term in office as the Chief Minister. Earlier, she was served on the top post from 1991 to 1996, the second term was between 2001-06 and third from 2011-16. Thirteen new faces, including four women, have been introduced into the Cabinet.
Minutes after she was sworn in, she ordered a slew of measures aimed at fulfilling her electoral promises including waiving crop loans of farmers and free units of electricity to consumers.
She signed a file ordering waiver of crop loans upto March 31, 2016 payable to co-operative banks. The waiver includes crop loan, medium and long term loans of small and micro farmers payable to co-operative banks and the move would entail a financial burden of Rs 5,780 crore on her government.
Jayalalitha's second order was 100 units of free power for domestic electricity consumers with effect from Monday is in tune with the present tariff computation. It would entail an additional payout of Rs 1,607 crore as grant to the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) by the state government.
Another order was for increasing gold allocation from 4 to 8 grams for women beneficiaries under the Thallikku Thangam Scheme for 'Mangalsutra'.
From now on beneficiaries will get eight grams of gold in addition to monetary assistance of Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000.
The Chief Minister increased free power to handloom weavers to 200 units and for powerlooms to 750 units. She ordered closure of 500 state-run TASMAC retail liquor outlets and cut short working hours of bars. With effect from Tuesday, the retail outlets and bars would function from noon to 10 pm which currently remain open between 10 am to 10 pm.
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