Hyderabad: TRS chief and caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao promised several enhancements in welfare schemes and allowances in the party’s election manifesto.
The CM attended the TRS election manifesto committee meeting chaired by Member of Parliament and TRS secretary-general K. Keshava Rao on Tuesday at Telangana Bhavan.
After the meeting, he revealed to the media part of his party’s election manifesto.
This includes waiver of Rs 1 lakh for farm loans in one instalment. Mr Rao said this would benefit those farmers whose loans are less then Rs 1 lakh. The 2014 election manifesto of the TRS had made the same promise and it was successfully implemented, he said.
Under the Rythu Bandhu scheme, the annual investment subsidy of Rs 8,000 per acre has been enhanced to Rs 10,000 per acre per year per farmer. A market intervention fund of Rs 2,000 crore will also be set up.
Under the Aasara scheme, about 40 lakh old people are getting a pension. The age limit at present is 65 years and this has now been lowered to 57 years, which will benefit about 8 lakh people, Mr Rao estimates. The amount of pension has been increased from Rs 1,000 a month to Rs 2,016 per month, and for the physically challenged from Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,016.
Mr Rao announced unemployment allowance for educated youth, which will be Rs 3,016 per month. He said there are roughly about 11 lakh unemployed youth in the state. Separate corporations for Reddy and Arya Vyshya communities and special schemes for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were also announced.
The double bedroom housing scheme will continue and in addition to this, if a beneficiary has his or her own site, the government will construct a double bedroom house on that site.
In recognition of the services of the farmers' coordination committees, an honorarium will be given. Food processing units will be set up in one of every two constituencies and government employees and teachers will be given respectable interim relief.
Mr Rao gave an assurance that every one of these schemes will be implemented immediately after his party forms the government except the unemployment allowance, for which guidelines have to be framed after studying the operation of this scheme in other states.
Reverting to his grouse against the Central government, he said the state government has not got a single rupee additionally in the last four-and-a-half years. He said that NITI Aayog has recommended to the Centre that Rs 24,000 crore be released for Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiradha, but the central government has not given even '24.
He said that after the LS polls if a government favourable to the TRS is formed at the Centre, the TRS government will get additional Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore. He promised that the TRS election manifesto will be implemented a hundred per cent, unlike the Congress.
