Hyderabad: As the Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao-led BRS government completes nine years in office on June 2, and heads for the elections later this year, the ruling party has decided to undertake a public outreach campaign to tell voters that the party has succeeded in fulfilling the statehood movement's main demands of "Neellu, Nidhulu, Niyamakalu" (water, funds and jobs).
From sarpanchs in the villages to legislators and ministers, elected representatives at all levels will take part in the campaign which has been designed to help the party garner support ahead of the elections five months away, amid the new political scenario created by the Congress scoring a big win in Karnataka.
The Opposition Congress and the BJP have been undertaking aggressive campaigns against BRS government for some time, accusing it of failing to achieve the three aims of statehood.
With regard to Neellu (water), the BRS government wants to highlight the construction of the world's largest multi-purpose lift irrigation project at Kaleshwaram in a record four years to utilise TS share in the Godavari. This has increased the irrigated land area to one crore acres and paddy production manifold from 68 lakh tonnes in 2014 to 2.5 crore tonnes. The drinking water issue has been resolved through Mission Bhagiratha and the fluorosis issue has been tackled.
On Nidhulu (funds), the BRS government wants to highlight that the size of the Budget as grown from Rs 1 lakh crore in 2014 to Rs 3 lakh crore, which indicates that the funds being spent for welfare and development has increased three-fold.
On Niyamakalu (jobs), the BRS government wants to highlight that under the leadership of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, it has provided employment to 2.2 lakh youth in the government and 22 lakh youth in the private sector. It also wants to highlight that Chief Minister ensured 95 per cent reservations to locals in government by bringing a new zonal system for government recruitments.
