New Delhi: Opposing the Union government's PM Vishwakarma scheme on the alleged grounds that it promotes caste-based discrimination, M.K. Stalin on Saturday (April 19) inaugurated a scheme of his own government's that he said will not effect such discrimination.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister launched his government's ‘Kalaignar crafts scheme’ in the Kundrathur suburb of Chennai on Saturday.

His government “vehemently opposed” the Vishwakarma scheme as it “openly promotes caste-based discrimination” and “hereditary occupations”, he said as per a press release.

“I was shocked and pained to see that the minimum age for applicants is fixed at 18. Is 18 the age at which a student goes to college for higher education or at which they are pushed into hereditary occupations?” he said of the Union government scheme.

Stalin added: “It is the duty of a government to bring students who drop out of studies back on to path of education, not to throw them out of studies and that too to work in hereditary occupations.”

“In a caste-ridden Indian society, what kind of consequences will this have?” the chief minister also asked.

Launched in 2023 by the Union micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) ministry, the PM Vishwakarma scheme provides credit, skill training, tools and incentives to artisans and craftspeople working in 18 “family-based traditional trades” including carpenters, boatwrights, blacksmiths, cobblers, barbers and tailors.

The scheme's registration walkthrough contains a step where applicants are required to declare that their profession or trade is their “family profession acquired through guru-shishya tradition”.

Speaking on Saturday, Stalin said that under the Kalaignar crafts scheme, anyone can pick a trade of their choice from the ones the scheme covers.

“We have set a minimum age of 35 to apply” for the scheme to ensure that “no student of college-going age thinks that it is enough to just do the family occupation,” he was also quoted as saying.

Late last year, Stalin said his Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led government would not implement the scheme.

He said that he had written to Prime Minister Modi recommending that Vishwakarma be modified to remove the ‘mandatory’ provision that the applicant's family be involved in a family-based traditional trade and that the minimum age be raised to 35 so that “only those who have made an informed choice to continue their family trade can avail of benefits under this scheme”.

He also asked that the onus of verifying beneficiaries be shifted from heads of gram panchayats to village administrative officers, who work with the revenue department.

But when the Union MSME ministry's response allegedly made “no mention of the modifications suggested above”, the state government decided not to implement the scheme, Stalin said.

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