Pondicherry: Chief Minister N. Rangasamy announced in the Assembly on Thursday that the Government had increased the monthly pension for freedom fighters from Rs. 3000 to Rs 4000.

Winding up a debate on demands for grants to some of the departments, Mr. Rangasamy said the pension given to senior citizens, widows and destitute women had been raised to Rs. 600 from Rs 500. Those suffering from AIDS and cancer would be given a monthly assistance of Rs. 500 instead of Rs. 100. The Chief Minister said the Government had decided to increase the number of anganwadi centres operated under the Integrated Child Development Scheme from 677 to 777.

The Government would sanction a loan of Rs. 6 lakh to government employees aged 50 years to enable them to have their wards admitted to institutions abroad for studies. Fishermen who had lost their houses in the December 2004 tsunami would be paid a housing assistance of Rs 2.3 lakh to construct houses either on the same sites or in any other alternative sites they preferred.

Mr. Rangasamy said raincoats would be distributed to physically challenged persons. Students who are visually impaired and had emerged first, second and third in SSLC (Tamil medium) examinations would be granted Rs. 15,000, Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 5000 respectively. A normal person marrying a physically challenged spouse would be extended an award of Rs. 25,000 instead of Rs. 20,000 now available under a scheme.

A special drive would be launched to fill vacancies in posts reserved for the Scheduled Castes in government departments. A special scholarship to encourage women's education would be available at Rs. 1000 a year per girl child instead of Rs. 500.

The Urban Employment Project would distribute a total of Rs. 2 crore as loan to benefit 3000 persons of the Self-Help Groups to enable them to take up self-employment programmes against 2497 women covered with disbursement of Rs 1.7 crore during last year.

The Women and Child Development here had provided Rs. 1.21 crore as loan to enable women self-help groups to take up self-employment projects.

As many as 95 self-help groups were covered under the scheme. The groups formed under "Development of Women and Children in Urban Areas" scheme would get a loan up to Rs. 2.5 crore for the self-employment projects and around 300 groups would be benefited under this scheme. The Urban Employment scheme benefited 98,084 persons and assets worth Rs. 2 crore were created under this scheme last year.

The scheme envisaged creation of job opportunities for 1.5 lakh persons this year and assets worth Rs. 2.5 crore would be created through this endeavour.

Mr. Rangasamy who also presented replies on "Information and Publicity" said the pension paid to media persons had been raised from Rs. 2000 to Rs. 4000 a month and laptops would be distributed to each of the reporters.

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