Hyderabad: Thousands of people lined up with hope at the first-ever Praja Darbar in Telangana state held by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, who on Friday threw open the gates of Praja Bhavan, formerly the Pragathi Bhavan to the public, and received their petitions and heard their concerns.
For almost all of them, it was their first visit inside the complex, many of them had previously sought entry but had failed.
Most of the complaints and grievances were on mistakes in the Dharani portal entries, lack of ration cards, pensions, houses.
Complaints also poured in against BRS leaders encroaching their land and restricting the benefits of government schemes to party faithful.
For a long time, Revanth Reddy personally took the petitions and assured that their concerns would be resolved at the earliest.
People expressed gratitude to Revanth Reddy for launching Praja Darbar, enabling them to meet the Chief Minister directly, just a day after taking oath, and said they did not get such an opportunity in the last nine years.
Fifteen desks have been opened for grievance registration at Praja Bhavan. A mechanism has been developed to register the petitions online and issue an grievance Number (ID generated) to each petition.
A printed acknowledgment was given to the applicant along with SMS acknowledgement.
Officials had arranged 320 seats inside the Praja Darbar hall. Queue lines were set up outside. Drinking water and other facilities were provided to those who are waiting at the entrance and in the Praja Darbar hall.
People were overjoyed to see the dismantling of iron barricades at Pragathi Bhavan, the official camp office cum residence of Chief Minister, that were set up during the BRS government. The dismantling of fencing also resolved traffic snarls as the fencing created a bottleneck on the busy Begumpet road. They hailed the decision of Revanth Reddy to rename Pragathi Bhavan as Praja Bhavan and keeping doors open for common people.
A significant number of physically challenged persons arrived at Praja Bhavan. Revanth Reddy paid special attention to them and instructed officials to resolve their issues on the spot. Their major complaints were BRS government cancelling their ration cards and rejecting their applications for 2BHK housing scheme.
A. Appa Rao, 60-year old physically challenged person from Yapral, had suffered a spine injury in 2005 when he was working in a pharma company. The then Congress government had sanctioned him a ration card and pension. "When BRS government came to power in 2014, it cancelled all old ration cards and sought fresh applications. I applied for fresh ration card in 2015 but it was not sanctioned. I am running around revenue and civil supplies offices for the last nine years. I tried to meet KCR several times in Pragathi Bhavan to bring my plight to his notice. But police officials did not allow me inside saying that there is no permission to enter the premises or meet CM. Now, I am happy to enter the premises, meet CM and handed over petition to him," he said.
“Our new CM issued instructions to officials on the spot to issue me ration card,” said a beaming Appa Rao.
A 70-year old tribal woman, Sukhya, who came all the way from Kandukur in Rangareddy district, said she was the victim of Dharani portal as her one acre allotted by the previous Congress government was missing from the portal. "My land disappeared from the Dharani portal in 2019. A few BRS leaders took illegal possession of my land. I met all revenue officials right from VRO to district collector and submitted petitions. No one helped me. It tried to meet KCR several times in Pragathi Bhavan but there was no entry. Today, I am happy that I could enter this building, meet CM and submitted by representation. The CM received my complaint and gave me acknowledgement with a promise that the issue will be resolve once Dharani will be abolished soon. At this age, I can't run around offices and officials and I am confident that CM Revanth Reddy will resolve my issue."
People from districts submitted complaints on how BRS leaders misused Dalit Bandhu, BC Bandhu, Minority Bandhu schemes to benefit their party activists and supporters. Fareeduddin from Mahabubnagar complained to CM that BRS leaders sanctioned five 2BHK houses to members of the same family while denying them to genuine beneficiaries like him.
Revanth Reddy received petitions along with ministers Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy and Danasari Anasuya (Seethakka). After receiving petitions for one hours, the CM left for Secretariat to attend review meeting on power situation. Later, Seethakka received grievance applications from everyone.
The state government made elaborate arrangements for the conduct of Praja Darbar. CMO principal secretary V. Sheshadri, DGP Ravi Gupta, HMWS&SB MD Dana Kishore, GHMC commissioner Ronald Rose, Hyderabad collector Anudeep, IAS officer Musharraf Ali and other officials coordinated the conduct of Praja Darbar.
