CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Minister for Information Technology and Digital Services Palanivel Thiaga Rajan on Saturday emphasised the scale and structured implementation of welfare schemes over the last five years, stating that the government’s approach has delivered measurable impact while remaining rooted in social justice.

Speaking at the 14th edition of the ThinkEdu Conclave in Chennai, in a session titled Innovation to Impact: Building India’s Tech Future, chaired by author Shankkar Aiyyar, Thiaga Rajan outlined reasons for re electing the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

He said the party’s governance model over the past five years has focused on efficiency, inclusion and data driven policymaking.

Drawing on his 10 years in public life and decades of data analysis, he said the recent phase of governance has been marked by quantifiable outcomes.

From the Rs 12 per child breakfast scheme to targeted welfare enabled by integrated databases, every initiative was structured to ensure efficiency and inclusion.

Even free bus rides were implemented in a manner that protected loss making transport corporations, he said.

“I hope the people will decide that we should continue because we do good work. We are thoughtful, we are responsible, and we provide our political philosophy of social justice, 100% inclusion and upliftment of all sections of society, as opposed to just a few,” he added.

On employment generation amid the growth of artificial intelligence, he said new opportunities were emerging across sectors.

“There are lots of new jobs being created. For example, there’s a company in Coimbatore annotating and digitalising visual images for autonomous vehicles. Initially it had 200 jobs and now it has 400. So jobs are growing in different areas," he said.

"The transformation of jobs will happen slower than we think. It is not immediate, and new jobs are being created, particularly for the foreseeable future. In the next five years, there will be many new jobs in adapting our data and systems to AI,” he added.

Addressing the state’s financial position, Thiaga Rajan said debt should be assessed as a percentage of Gross State Domestic Product rather than in absolute terms.

He said Tamil Nadu was not worse off than five years ago, adding that the real fiscal strain occurred between 2014 and 2021, when debt rose from about 16% to 26 to 27% of GSDP and interest payments doubled to nearly 20% of revenue.

While finances are not dramatically better at present, he said they have stabilised alongside expanded welfare schemes and 11.19% real growth last year.