Vijayawada: Chief Minister Jagan Reddy as president of the YSR Congress is drawing various strategies for the Big Battle 2024 and concentrating more on the flagship Navaratnalu Pedalandariki Illu mega housing programme. The benefits of this scheme would reach 30 lakh housing beneficiaries, hopefully helping the ruling YSRC fetch over a crore of votes from this segment.
A year is left for the 2024 polls, during which time, Jagan Reddy gave his party cadre a new task of explaining the benefits and “exposing” the “false” claims of the Telugu Desam vis-a-vis the housing programme.
Some analysts noted that Chandrababu Naidu, after winning the elections in 2014, did not implement a majority of his poll promises. He implemented a few out of the 600 odd promises, that too in parts. Worse, he started the implementation of his welfare schemes just before the 2019 elections, which only boomeranged on him. By contrast, Jagan Reddy started implementation of his promises, including the welfare schemes of Navaratnalu, in earnest after he took power in 2019 and did not stop these even in the Covid period. This might be Advantage-YSRC in the next polls, the analysts claim.
Now, the chief minister is evolving new strategies by resorting to social engineering and on the basis of his welfare schemes.
The mega housing programme was started in two phases under which 16 lakh houses would be completed in the first phase and the rest in the second phase. The YSRC had aimed to complete the housing programme at least one year before the 2024 elections, but in vain.
Observing the tardy pace of the housing programme, the chief minister is frequently conducting reviews and hopes to complete the projects well before the polls.
According to the data, only 3,40,695 houses under the mega scheme were completed out of the total 16 lakh houses. The roofs of 48,557 houses have been completed, while 75,442 houses were at roof level. Some 3,32,074 houses completed the basement, 7,21,715 were still in below-basement level and work on 29,268 houses has not been started.
The Chittoor and Vizianagaram districts are performing well with 28361 houses. Some 28096 houses are reaching completion. Palnadu with only 5356 completed houses, Konaseema with 5787 houses and Visakhapatnam with 5398 completed houses lagged behind others.
Jagan Reddy decided to construct TIDCO houses free of cost. Stressing the need to complete the Mega Housing Pedalandariki Illu works fast, he had asked bankers to give loans to the housing beneficiaries to complete the houses.
The CM aimed to handover the completed TIDCO houses by December 2023 and asked the officials and party cadres to tell truths about TIDCO houses to the people. He pointed out that there were no registrations of TIDCO houses between 2015 and 2019, when the TD was in power. During the last 45 months in his term, 1,55,673 houses were registered and 48,172 houses handed over to the beneficiaries, he said.
Notably, a majority of the house sites were given in the name of women. Hence, completion of these houses is mandatory to attract them to the YSRC in the 2024 elections. It is assumed that each beneficiary family would have a minimum of four members. This would mean, 1.20 crore persons from this special segment of the population would be voting for the YSRC in the 2024 elections.
