Chennai: “You are pushing the electricity department into debt. Now you are pushing the transport department into debt. If anyone criticizes you, you throw them in jail. You are pushing the entire Tamil Nadu into a pit,” said Velmurugan, leader of the Tamilaga Valvurimai Katchi, criticizing Chief Minister Vijay.
In a statement he issued on this, he said, “When implementing a public welfare scheme, the positive and negative impacts it will have on society and on the government’s financial position must be studied in advance. Expanding schemes without ensuring the necessary financial resources will ultimately create a situation where the burden is placed on the shoulders of the entire public.
The தமிழக வாழ்வுரிமைக் கட்சி has already been continuously raising questions about the financial burden of Tamil Nadu’s power sector. In particular, the electricity department has stated that to meet peak-hour power demand, it has been forced to buy one unit of electricity from private players at a price ranging from Rs. 35 to ₹37. We have already issued a statement regarding this as well.
At present, the condition of the state transport corporations is also worrying. According to the Tamil Nadu government’s transport department policy note, the daily revenue of the state transport corporations is Rs. 47.89 crore, while the daily expenditure is Rs. 70.15 crore. In other words, there is already a daily deficit of Rs. 22.26 crore. In 2025–26, the average monthly loss was Rs. 393.76 crore. In this situation, the government has announced that the women’s free travel scheme will be further expanded, costing about Rs. 6,000 crore a year.
You have already pushed the electricity sector into debt. Now you are pushing the transport sector into debt. If anyone criticizes, you throw them in jail. You are pushing the entire state of Tamil Nadu into a pit.
There is no disagreement that the scheme of providing free travel for women should continue. But the government must bear the entire financial burden of that scheme. You should not place an additional burden on the heads of the transport corporations, which are already in financial distress, and weaken their functioning.
Will the government provide the full funding for the expanded free bus travel scheme for women, when transport corporations are already operating at a deficit of Rs. 22.26 crore per day? On whose head will this financial burden fall? Where is the complete source of funding for a scheme that has been announced to cost about Rs. 6,000 crore a year?
As the financial burden on essential public sectors such as the electricity department and the transport department continues to rise, does the government have a long-term plan to revive them?
Why, in the name of implementing welfare schemes for the people, is the financial burden of those schemes being placed on public sector undertakings, pushing them further into debt and losses?
People’s welfare schemes should benefit the people. At the same time, the public sector institutions that implement them must also be financially strong. It is not possible to protect Tamil Nadu’s economic future by weakening essential public sectors such as electricity and transport.
Therefore, I urge, on behalf of the Tamil Nadu Valvurimai Katchi, that the Tamil Nadu government should immediately announce a transparent long-term plan to ensure that the government bears the full cost of the women’s free travel scheme, while also protecting the financial condition of the state transport corporations and reducing the financial burden on the electricity department.’ he said.
