The State government provides financial assistance of ₹50,000 each to 10 Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe writers every year to get their selected works published. However, since the number of nominations received year after year is very less, a demand has been made to extend the assistance to English writings too without restricting it to Tamil alone.
Office of the Commissioner, Adi Dravidar Welfare, has informed this year’s recipient A.B. Karl Marx Siddharthar that his request to include English writings, under the financial assistance scheme, had been forwarded to the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department and that it is under the consideration of the government.
On July 10, 2006, a Government Order was issued to utilise the interest accrued from a corpus fund of ₹50 lakh, created in 2003, to encourage SC/ST writers. It was decided to provide financial assistance every year to 10 SC/ST authors and also to one non SC/ST author who writes about the travails faced by the oppressed communities.
