The Party will protest the TDP government's "apathy towards DWACRA women groups and farmers by going back on its election promise of waiving all loans".
The YSR Congress Party will organize dharnas at the various mandal headquarters on October 16 to protest the TDP government's "apathy towards DWACRA women groups and farmers by going back on its election promise of waiving all loans".
Interacting with DWACRA women groups today, Party President and Leader of the Opposition in Andhra Pradesh Y S Jaganmohan Reddy said, "The State government has gone back on its promise of waiving off the loans of the DWACRA women's groups, and the latter have now become defaulters. They are undergoing turmoil as they have to pay penal interest as well. We will protest the indifference of the TDP government at the mandal level on October 16."
The loan waiver reneging had a telling effect on the economic activity of the DWACRA groups, and Chandrababu Naidu, after promising the moon during electioneering, had, after assuming power, been trying to find ways and means to slash the welfare schemes and water them down through scanty budgetary allocations, he alleged.
"Members of the DWACRA groups have told me that they had seen the pavala vaddi scheme and interest-free loans during the YSR term, and were now standing as defaulters before the banks as Naidu had deceived them by going back on his promises made during the election.
"They did not pay the installment as they believed the words of Naidu while he was electioneering, and his breach of trust has become a burden on them as bankers are in no mood to listen to their version," Jagan said.
Lack of budgetary allocations proportionate to his election promises showed that Naidu wanted to evade the implementation of the welfare schemes he announced, be it pensions, ration cards or fee reimbursement, Jagan lamented.
"Naidu wants to weed out over 15 lakh ration cards on some pretext or the other. During his earlier term, he had declared people with a monthly income of only up to Rs 2,000 as eligible for ration cards, while YSR had increased the income limit to Rs 5,000, which showed who cared for the poor," he said.
To cover up the scanty budgetary allocations, Naidu was cutting down the number of beneficiaries, and set up a committee to shorten the list of pensioners, Jagan said. For the 43,11,688 pensioners, the annual budget required was Rs 3,700 crores, while in the actual allocation was only Rs 1,338 crores, and the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister intended to fill the yawning gap by slashing the number of beneficiaries and setting new eligibility norms.
"We have to work together to fight this injustice, and the YSR Congress will hold dharnas at mandal headquarters on October 16 to highlight the failures of the State government in fulfilling its promise of waiving agriculture and DWACRA loans," he said. (INN)