Is the ‘Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme’ in Tamil Nadu required in a Dravidian welfare model state today or is it yet another populist scheme couched cleverly in the language of welfare of the poor? With a budget outlay of ₹33.5 crore in the initial phase, the new scheme caters to 1,14,095 primary school students from 1,545 government schools. It mainly aims to help students attend school hunger-free and improve their nutritional status.
Three developments
The scheme stands at the confluence of three sociopolitical developments: a fierce but murky political debate on freebies, falling human development performance, and the educational disruption caused by COVID-19. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin defended the scheme as a responsibility of the state, and not as a freebie, charity or incentive. This distinction is significant as the freebie debate clubs clientelist, populist, welfare-promoting, and human development-enhancing schemes as one and denigrates all of them without distinction. The States have a responsibility to promote welfare and minimise inequalities in income as well as in facilities and opportunities among individuals and groups (Article 38). The freebie debate strategically deploys fiscal burden as a potent tool to possibly constrain States from discharging this responsibility.
