Tamil Nadu Assembly election | Ministers’ assets more than doubled in five years

The declared cumulative price of assets owned by the Tamil Nadu Cabinet Ministers and their spouses and dependent members of the family grew by 111% from ₹154.69 crore in 2016 to ₹326.47 crore in 2021, in line with an evaluation of the affidavits filed by them for the Assembly election.

The sharpest enhance was in the price of moveable assets, which practically tripled, from ₹54.55 crore in 2016 to ₹162.15 crore in 2021. The price of immovable assets grew by 64% from ₹100.14 crore to ₹164.32 crore.

The cumulative annual revenue grew by 80% from ₹13.43 crore to ₹24.2 crore, whereas the cumulative liabilities grew by 74% from ₹29.7 crore to ₹51.76 crore.

Sources of revenue

While a majority of the Ministers declared their wage for serving as MLAs and farming and rental revenue as sources of revenue, just a few like C. Vijayabaskar, M.R. Vijayabhaskar and Sevvoor S. Ramachandran have declared companies, too, as sources.

Minister for Commercial Taxes and Registration K.C. Veeramani declared the very best price of assets, each in 2016 and 2021. His assets grew by 148% from ₹27.7 crore in 2016 to ₹68.7 crore in 2021.

While Mr. Vijayabaskar, Health and Family Welfare Minister, was in the fifth place in 2016 with complete assets price ₹9.08 crore, he has the second highest in 2021, along with his assets growing practically seven fold to ₹61.5 crore.

While 4 Ministers — Kadambur Raju, D. Jayakumar, V.M. Rajalakshmi and R.B. Udhayakumar — had declared assets price much less than ₹1 crore in 2016, all of them are crorepatis, in line with their 2021 affidavits.

Highest progress

Minister for Higher Education K.P. Anbalagan confirmed the very best progress in assets from ₹2.4 crore to ₹19.27 crore, practically an eight-fold enhance.

The solely two individuals to point out a decline are Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Minister for Tamil Official Language and Tamil Culture ‘Ma Foi’ K. Pandiarajan.

While the decline in the Chief Minister’s assets from ₹7.8 crore to ₹6.7 crore may primarily be attributed to his mom, son and daughter-in-law lacking as dependants in the 2021 affidavit, the decline in Mr. Pandiarajan’s assets is owing to the drop in his moveable assets.

A noticeable distinction is the declaration of serious price of assets below the Puucho Undivided Family accounts by more variety of Ministers in 2021.

Noticeably excessive

In the case of some Ministers, the ratio of their annual revenue to their complete assets is noticeably excessive. For occasion, whereas Mr. Jayakumar has declared complete assets price ₹1.8 crore, his household’s revenue in 2021 is ₹1.2 crore, 66% of the assets.

The liabilities of Ministers largely contain financial institution loans. In some instances, they embody borrowing from members of the family or different people.

The affidavits of some Ministers have obtrusive tallying errors in their abstract.

For occasion, Mr. Veeramani’s affidavit seems mistakenly copied from his 2016 affidavit at many locations. In such instances, The Puucho seemed on the detailed listing of assets in the affidavit to reach on the complete.

(Note: The evaluation included 27 of the 30 Ministers in the Cabinet. Ministers Nilofer Kafeel, G. Baskaran and S. Valarmathi, who have been denied renomination in the 2021 election, have been excluded).