Urudhunai loan scheme
▪ Urudhunai loan scheme launched by the Tamil Nadu government for Adi Dravidars and Scheduled Tribes.
▪ It is to provide small and micro loans, worth ₹25 crore, at reduced interest rates to small retailers, traders and manufacturers from Adi Dravidar and tribal communities through the National Finance
Development Fund.
▪ The loans under the scheme would be provided, with the State government’s subsidy, through cooperative banks.
▪ Under this scheme training would be provided to 500 entrepreneurs to improve the participation of companies owned by Scheduled Castes/Tribes and SC/ST entrepreneurs in public procurement, at a cost of ₹50 lakh.
Makkalai Thedi Maruthuvam (MTM)
▪ Tamil Nadu’s flagship scheme — Makkalai Thedi Maruthuvam (MTM) — has demonstrated an improvement in the management of hypertension and diabetes in the State.
▪ Among adults with hypertension, the beneficiaries with blood pressure control rose to 17%, and for diabetes, those with controlled blood sugar levels rose to 16.7%.
▪ This finding from Tamil Nadu STEPS (World Health Organization STEPwise approach to noncommunicable diseases risk factor surveillance) Survey 2023-24, which was taken up by the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR-NIE)
▪ The scheme was rolled out in August 2021.
▪ This survey substantiates the efforts taken by the State government under MTM to achieve the Disbursement-Linked Indicators (DLI) set by the World Bank.
