Chennai, Feb 19 (IANS): Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu on Monday said that the state would establish an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Mission to develop guidelines for constructively leveraging AI in education, employment, industry, research and medicine.

The AI Mission will also establish clear protocols for its utilisation.

It will involve professors from leading educational institutions in Tamil Nadu, executives from the electronics industry, and experts in the field.

The finance minister stated this while addressing the Assembly during the presentation of the budget for the financial year 2024-25.

The minister said that the Chief Minister’s Breakfast scheme will be extended to government-aided primary schools in rural areas and an amount of Rs 600 crore has been allocated for the same.

He said that the Tamil Nadu Government will introduce a special scheme to incentivise additional employment of women in the State. This scheme will offer a payroll subsidy of 10 per cent of the salary of women, differently-abled and transgender employees for two years to all new industrial units providing direct employment to over 500 such individuals from Tamil Nadu.

Thangam Thennarasu said that the state will incentivise the creation of high paying jobs in new Global Capability Centres (GCCs) by providing a payroll subsidy of 30 per cent in the first year, 20 per cent in the second year and 10 per cent in the third year for jobs with pay above Rs 1,00,000 per month.

He said that the state government would meet the higher education expenses of transgenders. The minister said that this would be implemented through the transgender welfare board and added that an amount of Rs 2 crore has been allotted for the purpose. He said that the Government will also meet the hostel fee of transgenders.