CHENNAI: The Stalin govt in Tamil Nadu accused the Centre of “cheating” by not releasing Rs 2,152 crore Samagra Shiksha funds to the state for not following a three-language formula under the New Education Policy, and said it’s using its own funds for the welfare of govt school students, for teacher salary and other expenses.

TN drops Rs, uses Tamil ‘Roo’ in logo

Finance minister Thangam Thennarasu made the remark while presenting the state budget a day after the Stalin govt unveiled a new logo for the budget, using the Tamil letter “roo” – which signifies “roobai”, Tamil for rupee – in place of the ‘ symbol.
“Even at this critical juncture, the people have wholeheartedly rallied behind the CM for upholding the dignity of the state by standing firm on the bilingual policy, even at the cost of foregoing Rs 2,000 crore,” the finance minister said. He added that “while the state’s own revenues have been increasing due to the efforts of the govt, the transfers from the Centre in the form of grants-in-aid and share in central taxes as a proportion of total revenue receipts have reduced significantly”.
The budget allocated Rs 46,767 crore for school education in TN. DMK pointed out that in comparison, the Union budget allocated Rs 78,572 crore for school education for the entire country.
BJP slams Stalin, says Karunanidhi endorsed Rs (₹) symbol
Responding to the change of logo for the budget, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and BJP TN president K Annamalai criticised the chief minister, saying the ‘rupee’ symbol, designed by D Udhayakumar, son of former DMK MLA N Dharmalingam, was endorsed by M Karunanidhi, and Stalin was being “stupid”.
State planning commission vice-chairman J Jeyaranjan said the rupee symbol was in Devanagari script and it was decided to drop itand use the Tamil letter “roo”. Annamalai said “Stalin has surrounded himself with such nincompoops”.
Sharing an old picture of former CM M Karunanidhi appreciating Udhayakumar for the design, Annamalai said on X, “What the father endor-sed, the son rejects.” Sitharaman posted on X: “If the DMK has a problem with ‘₹’, why didn’t it protest back in 2010 when it was officially adopted under the Congress-led UPA govt, at a time when DMK was part of the ruling alliance at the Centre?”
Calling it an “example of language and regional chauvinism”, she said, “This is more than mere symbolism. It signals a dangerous mindset thatweakens Indian unity and promotes secessionist sentiments under the pretence of regional pride.”
Udhayakumar, a professor at IIT Guwahati’s design department who designed the official rupee symbol, said such a debate was unnecessary. “I used the Devanagari script as the base to design the symbol. It was a competition back then, and I had to stick to the rules of the competition. De-vanagari is a script that is used not just by the Hindi language but also by Sanskrit and some minor languages. So, restricting the debate to Tamil vs Hindi is unnecessary,” he said.
Former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan said, “Let Stalin change his name to a Tamil name. To hide the failures of his govt, this drama goes on … DMK always talks of separatism…they are against national integrity.”