Perarignar Anna Memorial Award (Tamil Nadu BC, MBC and Denotified Communities)

What is the Perarignar Anna Memorial Award?

The Perarignar Anna Memorial Award is a merit award of the Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Department, Government of Tamil Nadu. It recognises students from Backward Class (BC), Most Backward Class (MBC) and Denotified Community (DNC) families who take the top two ranks in the Class 12 public examination in their district, and it carries a cash award paid each year while the student continues in higher study.

The award is named for C.N. Annadurai, addressed in Tamil as Perarignar Anna, and it belongs to a family of merit awards and prize schemes the department runs alongside its much larger scholarship, hostel and free-education programmes.

Two things about this scheme have to be stated honestly before any student plans around it.

First, the amount is reported differently in different places. Published descriptions put the award at Rs 3,000 a year in some accounts and Rs 5,000 a year in others, continued for four to five years or until the course is completed. No single current departmental figure is available to settle it. A student should ask the District Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Officer for the rate sanctioned this year rather than budget on either number.

Second, the award does not appear in the department's own published citizen charter for 2023-24. That document sets out the department's schemes in detail: hostels, scholarship schemes, boarding grants, the rural girls incentive scheme, free bicycles, Kallar Reclamation schools, free iron boxes, modern laundry units, free motorised sewing machines, readymade garment units, and the distribution of free house site pattas, and it does not list the Perarignar Anna Memorial Award among them. That absence does not prove the award has been withdrawn, and district-level material continues to describe it. It does mean a student should confirm at the district office before assuming an entitlement.

Why a district-level rank award exists. Tamil Nadu's Class 12 public examination is the single gate to professional education in the state, and a statewide merit list concentrates in a handful of urban schools. Awarding at district level deliberately spreads recognition to a student who topped in a rural district against weaker odds, and tying the payment to continued study in a professional course pushes the recognition into the years when money actually decides whether a student finishes.

Who is eligible for the Perarignar Anna Memorial Award, and who is not eligible?

You can be considered if:

• You belong to a Backward Class, Most Backward Class or Denotified Community listed by the Government of Tamil Nadu, and hold a community certificate from the Tahsildar. The department's citizen charter carries the full community lists.
• You secured the first or second rank in the Class 12 public examination in your district.
• You are a resident of Tamil Nadu and studied in a school in the district in which the rank was secured.
• You have joined a higher course, the award is described as supporting professional courses in Tamil Nadu colleges, and remain enrolled.

You are not eligible if:

• You do not hold a community certificate in one of the three categories. Students from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities are served by the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department's own award and scholarship schemes, and minority students by the Minorities Welfare wing.
• Your rank is outside the top two in your district. This is a rank award, not a marks-threshold scholarship, and there is no partial benefit.
• You are studying outside Tamil Nadu, where the award is described as supporting study in Tamil Nadu colleges.
• You have discontinued the course for which the award was sanctioned. Continuation is conditional on remaining on the rolls.
• You are claiming for a year in which you have already received the same award through another channel.

How to apply for the Perarignar Anna Memorial Award

1. Wait for the Class 12 public examination results and confirm your district rank with your school. The award follows the ranking, so the school's records are the starting point.
2. Obtain your community certificate from the Taluk Office or through an e-Sevai centre if you do not already hold one. Apply early — this is the document that most often delays a claim.
3. Contact the District Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Officer at your district Collectorate and ask whether the award is being sanctioned this year, what the current rate is, and what format the claim takes. Given the uncertainty about the scheme's current status, this step comes before the paperwork.
4. Submit the claim through your school or the college you have joined, with your Class 12 marksheet, community certificate, nativity or residence proof, admission order for the higher course, Aadhaar and bank passbook copy.
5. Take an acknowledgement with a date and reference number.
6. Renew each year by producing a bonafide certificate from the college and your results for the previous year, since the award is paid annually through the course.

What documents are required?

How to check the status of your claim

There is no online tracker for this award. The route runs through the district:

1. Ask your school or college for the date on which the claim was forwarded and the reference under which it went.
2. Follow up with the District Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Officer at the Collectorate, who holds the sanction.
3. If the district office cannot help, write to the Director of Backward Classes Welfare, Chepauk, Chennai 600005 (044-28551442), or for MBC and Denotified Community students the Director of Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities Welfare (044-28410042).

Why claims fail

• Community certificate not produced, or in a category outside BC, MBC and DNC.
• Rank not confirmed by the school or not within the top two for the district.
• No admission to a higher course, so the continuing award has nothing to attach to.
• Bank account in a parent's name rather than the student's, which stalls the credit.
• Claim made too late, after the district has closed its list for the year.
• The scheme not being sanctioned in the current year, which is the outcome a student should establish at the district office before spending time on the file.

Other help for BC, MBC and DNC students

Because this award reaches only two students per district, the department's larger schemes matter more for most families, and a student who misses the rank award should still claim these:

• Scholarship schemes; pre-matric and post-matric support for school and college students.
• Free education for professional courses for eligible BC, MBC and DNC students.
• Hostels with boarding grants, run in large numbers across the state; the department's citizen charter lists them district by district.
• Rural Girls Incentive Scheme, to keep girls in school in rural areas.
• Free bicycles for students entering Class 11.
• Distribution of free house site pattas, where the individual annual income limit was raised to Rs 1,00,000 with effect from 2021-22.
• Loans through TABCEDCO, the Tamil Nadu Backward Classes Economic Development Corporation.

Where to raise a grievance

The department publishes a defined escalation route in its citizen charter:

• District Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Officer at your Collectorate, first.
• District Collector, and the Director of Backward Classes Welfare, Chepauk, Chennai 600005 to 044-28551442, dir-bcmw@tn.nic.in.
• Director of Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities Welfare, Chepauk, Chennai 600005 to 044-28410042, dir-combc@tn.gov.in.
• Additional Chief Secretary, Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Department, Secretariat, Chennai.

Claiming this award is free. No payment should be made to any school official, agent or intermediary to have a claim forwarded.