Naidu slams state for ‘failure’ to disburse pensions to aged persons

Vijayawada: Telugu Desam chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu has said that the YSRC government has failed to disburse social security pensions, especially to the aged persons, on the first day of the month.

Addressing the party leaders and booth-level party activists through teleconference on Monday, the TD chief alleged that the Jagan Mohan Reddy government emptied the state exchequer and was unable to disburse pensions to the aged persons. The government had money. But, within 15 days from the time of announcement of the poll code, `13,000 crore was paid to the contractors by this government,” he said.

Naidu said that as the state government used the services of village/ward volunteers for political purposes, the Election Commission issued directions imposing a ban on availing the services of volunteers.

Naidu blamed the government by saying it failed to disburse pensions even as there was a chance to do so with the help of neary 1.35 lakh village/ward secretariat staff in one day’s time across the state.

Maintaining that the TD did not ask the Election Commission not to allow the village/ward volunteers to disburse pensions, he called upon the party leaders and activists to take up door-to-door campaign on how the YSRC government was failing to disburse pensions to the beneficiaries. “The people should know the facts. Once our alliance government is formed after the polls, we would disburse `4,000 per head per month,” he said.

He assured the beneficiaries that even if they failed to get pension for two to three months, “we would pay these as arrears once we form the government.”

Naidu urged the EC to issue directions to the state government for disbursal of pensions through district collectors and tahsildars at mandal level.

Referring to the good turnout of people for the Prajagalam programme, Naidu said this was indicative of the huge support the TD-JS-BJP alliance was getting from the masses.

The TD chief said that the Prajagalam public meetings would resume on April 3. Naidu assured the people he would safeguard the interests of the Muslims and faulted the Jagan Mohan Reddy government for raising loans worth Rs 13 lakh crore. He underscored the need for support from the Centre to keep AP’s economy on track.