Scam Nadu - Tamil Nadu
� 50 Years of Loot, Lies, and the Art of Political Entrepreneurship
While most states celebrate 75 years of independence with flag hoisting, Tamil Nadu has something even more spectacular to showcase 50 years of scam innovation. From crocodiles in the Coovum to spectrum heists that shook the nation, we've mastered the fine art of turning public funds into private fortunes.
In this new investigative satire series, The Tamil Nadu Tapes, I dive into the state's rich and colourful legacy of corruption one scam at a time. We start with a river that was “cleaned” with ₹3 crore and ended with a crocodile instead of boating. And that’s just the opening act.
� If you thought 2G was the big one, wait till you meet the sugar-eating ants, the pipeline with no water, and the sand mafia that stole rivers.
� This isn't just about scandals. It's about systems. It's not just theft. It's policy. It’s Scamistan and Tamil Nadu is its founding franchise.
Follow along for a satirical, data-backed series on how scams built an empire. And if you’re from another state don’t worry, your time will come.
“The Tamil Nadu Tapes: 50 Years of Loot, Lies, and Laughter”
� Part 1: The Crocodile That Sank Coovum (1967)
• Karunanidhi’s Coovum cleaning scam: ₹3 crore for river revival → ends with a crocodile and no boating.
• Humour angle: “India’s first amphibious scam.”
• Context: Early days of Dravidian political entrepreneurship.
� Part 2: The Pipes That Never Flowed – Veeranam Project Scam
• Huge funds for water pipelines → no water.
• Humour angle: “Piped dreams, literally.”
• Relevance: Ghost infrastructure as a motif in Tamil Nadu’s scam economy.
� Part 3: Sugar Ants and Sack-Eating Termites – PDS Scam
• Gunny bags full of sugar eaten by ants, and bags themselves eaten by termites.
• Satire: “Even insects are subcontracted in Scamistan.”
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Part 4: The Sarkaria Commission & The Art of Scam Immunity
• Commission set up to investigate corruption → ends in Congress-DMK alliance.
• Humour angle: “How to launder scams through political coalitions.”
� Part 5: The 2G Grandmasterclass – Exporting Scams Nationally
• Central scam, but Tamil Nadu’s political fingerprints all over.
• A Raja, spectrum, the works.
• Satirical framing: “From local loot to global headlines.”
� Part 6: Sand, Cement & Sacred Land – The Real Estate Decade
• Mining scams, illegal land grabs, temple property encroachments.
• Water bodies turned into luxury plots → flooding as karmic revenge.
• Title idea: “Built on Loot, Flooded by Truth”
� Part 7: The Transfer Economy – Bribes for Bureaucracy
• Job scams, teacher transfers, promotion rackets.
• Joke framing: “Government HR, but with brokerage.”
� Part 8: Transport Mafia – Spare Parts & Scrapped Ethics
• Transport department scams involving spare parts, procurement, and bus contracts.
• Satire angle: “Our buses might break down, but the loot flows smoothly.”
� Part 9: Modern Mayhem – ED Raids, Gutkha Gags, and E-Governance Exploits
• Recent scams involving gutkha, e-procurement platforms, AIADMK and DMK's tech-savvy loot evolution.
• “Even corruption got digitised.”
� Part 10: A Scam for Every Season – The Small Loot That Adds Up
• Highlights of lesser-known scams: hostel ration scams, school uniform contracts, even statue sculpting tenders.
• Humour: “The petty becomes pretty big when repeated enough.”
� Part 11: How to Train Your Successor – The Cross-Party Scam Curriculum
• Institutional memory of corruption: how ministers train their future rivals.
• The DMK–AIADMK relay race of scam formats.
� Part 12: A State of Denial – How Voters, Media & Courts Looked Away
• Final piece in the Tamil Nadu arc.
• How institutions adapted to corruption.
• “It’s not that we don’t see the scams. We just voted for the better production value.”
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Part 1: The Crocodile That Sank Coovum
(Or, How to Turn a Dirty River Into a Perpetual Revenue Stream)
If rivers could write memoirs, the Coovum would have penned a political thriller by now. And Chapter One would feature a crocodile.
We begin in the 1960s, when M. Karunanidhi, then a young and ambitious Public Works Minister, decided to "beautify" the Coovum a river that once had spiritual significance and now doubles as Chennai's unofficial sewage highway. ₹3 crore was allocated for its cleansing. Boating was promised. Romance was in the air. And then nothing.
No de-silting, no cleaning, no boats just the smell of political convenience. But the pièce de résistance came when public pressure mounted: a crocodile was mysteriously “spotted” in the Coovum. The boating project was instantly scrapped. The funds? Let’s just say they were creatively repurposed. The Coovum became India’s first waterbody to receive an amphibious audit shield.
� Scam 2.0: The Return of the Perpetual Project
You’d think this would be a one-time embarrassment. Oh no. The DMK, recognising the beauty of a scam with no visible endpoint, turned Coovum Cleaning into a career-long subscription model.
• � 1996–2001: Coovum Cleaning Rebooted
• � 2006–2011: The River That Keeps on Giving
• � 2021–2026: “Mission Coovum” continues, with reports, tenders, and mysteriously vanishing funds.
Each term in power meant another round of funds, contracts, and committee reports. As for the river? It got worse. Cleaning the Coovum became the state’s version of software updates: frequent, expensive, and doing absolutely nothing noticeable.
No scam in Tamil Nadu has enjoyed this kind of longevity. It’s not just a crime it’s a tradition.
� Bonus Scam: The Sethu Samudram Spectacle
Why stop at rivers? When DMK’s influence reached the Centre, it took this aquatic ambition offshore. Enter the Sethu Samudram Shipping Canal Project, blessed by the Shipping Ministry and powered by DMK’s national coalition leverage.
Thousands of crores were sunk into dredging the Palk Strait. The result? A canal too shallow for modern ships, too controversial for religious sentiments, and too lucrative for contractors to resist.
Like Coovum, Sethu Samudram became another liquid loophole money flowed freely, just not the water. Or the ships.
“What did we get for all that spending?” you ask.
Only the sea god knows.
� Scam Model: The Coovum-Sethu Framework
1. Pick a natural resource (preferably one with emotional or environmental significance).
2. Announce an ambitious public project.
3. Set up multiple committees, task forces, feasibility studies.
4. Keep cleaning, dredging, allocating. Repeat.
5. Blame nature, opposition, or crocodiles for non-delivery.