Tamil Nadu replaces rupee symbol from Budget
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, escalating the language row with the central government, dropped the official rupee symbol with the Tamil letter for ‘ru’ from ‘rubai’ (rupees in Tamil) for the state budget 2025-26.
Stalin shared on X a teaser for the state budget, which will be presented on March 14 in the state assembly, saying: “To ensure the widespread development of Tamil Nadu to benefit all sections of society…”
Along with hashtags ‘Dravidian Model’ and ‘TNBudget2025’ the logo for the budget was conspicuously missing the official Rupee symbol, which is inspired by the Hindi alphabet for ‘R’.
In the previous two budgets, the state had used the rupee symbol for its logos.
Even the 2023-24 budget prominently showed the symbol, which was designed by a professor at IIT-Guwahati, who incidentally is the son of a DMK leader.
This is the first time a state rejected the national currency symbol. The decision comes amidst the Tamil Nadu government’s resistance against NEP and the three-language formula.
However, DMK spokesperson A Saravanan said it was not the state rejecting the official rupee symbol, but an attempt to promote the Tamil language with the usage of the letter ‘ru’.