CM Jagan: AP govt stands by poor, Opposition anti-poor

VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has lashed out at the Opposition Telugu Desam, Jana Sena and others for “creating legal hurdles” to the construction of 50,793 houses for poor women at a cost of Rs 1,370 crore in Amaravati.

 The CM was addressing a public meeting to mark the start of the house sanction procedures, at Venkatapalem in Thullur mandal under Guntur district on Monday.

The CM inaugurated the pylon and performed Bhoomi Puja for construction of the new houses under the PM Awas Yojana Beneficiary-led Individual’s House Construction (U) Scheme and inspected a model house at Krishnayapalem housing layout at Mangalagiri.

“This is a special day in the history of AP as we are waging a battle against those who are anti-poor and creating hurdles in the way of allotting house sites for poor women hailing from SC, ST, BC and minorities,” he said.

Jagan Mohan Reddy targeted former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and “his gang of looters”, saying they filed 18 cases in the AP High Court and five cases in the Supreme Court to scuttle the housing project for the poor.

“Our government has been waging a legal fight in the last three years and finally we have got permission from both the HC and SC. We are going ahead with construction of houses for the poor and laying the foundation stone for the houses. We are committed to providing social justice to the poor.”

Referring to Naidu’s claim of developing Amaravati as the capital city, the CM said, “When we wanted to develop it, the Opposition attempted to stall it in the name of demographic imbalance,” Jagan Mohan Reddy said.

 He said the Opposition was anti-poor. These parties led by Naidu created hurdles when the YSRC government wanted to promote English as a medium of instruction in all government schools. They argued that Telugu language would be neglected. This is because they want the poor to remain poor with no development in their lives.”

The YSRC government, he said, gave away welfare scheme benefits totaling Rs 2.25 lakh crore to women in the state so far.

Referring to criticism that his government was raising the level of the state’s debts, he said the quantum of debts raised by his government so far were less than what the previous TD government did.

He asked, "Other than AP, which government provides social security pension to the aged persons on the first day of every month -- and through  a volunteer system at their doorsteps?”

The CM said that the YSRC government took up construction of houses in 1,400 acres of land in 25 layouts that would provide houses to 50,793 women beneficiaries in Amravati region. A sum of Rs 56 crore was spent for developing layouts and setting up survey stones for these plots. Each house was estimated to cost nearly Rs 2.70 lakh and all houses are to be bio-tagged by the CRDA.

For water supply, a sum of Rs 32 crore was earmarked and for power supply Rs 326 crore while Rs 8 crore for approach roads. The works have already started, the CM said.

He said anganwadi centres, schools, shopping malls and parks would be developed for the benefit of these households. “The CRDA valued a square yard at Rs 15,000 and the total value of each house site to be Rs 7.5 lakh. Once the construction of the houses is completed, each would be worth Rs 12 to Rs 15 lakh.”

Several beneficiary women like V. Nagamani, P. Shyam Sundari, K. Venkata Durga Devi, P. Sanjeeva Kumari, N. Vijaya Kumari and P. Malleswari came on board to thank the CM for giving them houses in Amaravati.