Beneficiaries humiliate government in Siddaramaiah's home turf

Mysuru: The Congress government faced embarrassing moments in the Chief Minister’s hometown when beneficiaries of state-run social welfare schemes not only highlighted their lacunae but even listed suggestions to make them successful, at the ‘Janamana’  programme here on Friday.

Janamana was meant to evoke a feedback of the beneficiaries on 12 popular programmes of the government. District in-charge minister Dr H.C. Mahadevappa chaired the session, while MLA Vasu, DC Randeep and officials from various departments were present.

Schoolchildren, the beneficiaries of Ksheera Bhagya, demanded that the state government provide them chocolate flavoured milk or a mixture of dry fruits and badam powder to enhance the taste of milk.

“Though the scheme had helped in our development, most children do not like the smell of the milk prepared with powder. Why can’t the state government ensure that farmers directly provide milk to schools instead of giving it to dairies,”  Sangeetha, a student from Bannur Government school sought to know.

The beneficiaries of ‘Anna Bhagya,’ an ambitious scheme of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah himself, said that they had to stand in queues for the whole day without even going for work, for the coupon to avail subsidised rice.  

The beneficiaries were not happy with the present system of distribution of rice wherein they are provided 5 kg of rice per head, and wanted the state government to continue the previous system wherein they were provided 10 kg for a single member family, 20 kg for two-member family and 30 kg for more than threemember family. While they demanded wheat and dal instead of ragi, Minister Mahadevappa said, “We are giving ragi and green gram for their health.”

But Nanjappa, a beneficiary retorted, “We can always grow ragi but not wheat.”  Beneficiaries of Vidya Siri (for hostel fees) alleged that though their friends have good percentage of marks, some were not getting Rs 15,000 and were getting Rs 8,000-10,000.

The beneficiaries of Manaswini pension scheme for unmarried women, complained that the pension  was not enough to even pay rent.

When the minister said that they should be getting the benefits of other schemes, a beneficiary said, “Yes we get them but not without bribes. The government hospital in HD Kote took Rs 8,000 for  my uterus surgery and gave us slips directing us to get medicines from private medical shops.”