Chandrababu Rule Is The Anti-Thesis Of Welfare Governance
Mucherla Cross, Visakhapatnam District: It is true that people never forget leaders who work for their upliftment with sincerity and commitment. Hundreds of people met me today expressing their gratitude for the good my father had done to them. A woman came and met me this morning on my Padayatra. She told me how she had to battle against caste—she walked out of her parents’ house with nothing but the clothes she was wearing, to marry the man she loved in an inter-caste marriage.
My father allotted a house under Indiramma housing scheme, to her, when he learnt of her plight. She was also given a loan under the Rajiv Yuva Shakti scheme, and began life afresh with a small saree-selling business. Later, she secured a job as an ANM and could settle down.
As it turned out, the two families came together after some time and reconciled themselves to the situation, to the satisfaction of all. Thanks to Arogyasri, she also underwent a heart surgery free of cost. Today, on learning of my Padayatra in this area, she came along with members of both families to meet me and to express her gratitude to my father. Incidentally, everyone in both the families is a TDP supporter to the core, and yet she wished to show her gratitude and the regard she had for my father.
Bhavani of Anandapuram BC Colony met me today on my Padayatra. Her husband, a daily wage worker suffered a leg fracture in an accident. Daily life had become a great challenge for them. She told me that at such a critical time in their lives, her son got a job in the police department during my father’s rule, and this proved to be their mainstay. She was overjoyed to see me.
Nagendra and Tanuja, siblings with a congenital heart condition, told me how they could undergo free heart surgery, thanks to my father. He disbursed the amount for their surgery from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund, they told me with gratitude. Nagendra also told me that he could complete his B. Tech, thanks my father’s pioneering fee reimbursement scheme. He never had to run around anyone during my father’s tenure, he said. He lamented that now when he is studying M.Tech, with fee reimbursement getting diluted, he is compelled to run around offices, including the BC welfare office.
A group of members of the Yadava community met me after I crossed Palavalasa. They were grazing some sheep in the area. They told me they were from S. Kota and that during my father’s tenure, they were given loans to buy sheep, in addition to insurance cover, vaccines and medicines and treatment. They had fond memories of that period and regretted that nothing of the sort was available today under TDP.
Migrant workers from Vizianagaram district met me near Seetampalem. They were sowing paddy seeds. They told me that they were forced to travel a distance of 40 km in autos for work every day, because they could not find it there. Of the Rs.250 a day they earn, they end up spending Rs.50 on auto fare. It saddened me deeply to see the plight of these migrant workers who found it very difficult to make both ends meet on the meagre amount they earn after all the hard work put in by them. Students of Gitam engineering College met me in the evening today. They complained about the exorbitantly high fee structure of the college and how they were put to great difficulty on account of this.
They said each student paid Rs.2.75 lakhs per annum and the amount was increased by Rs.25,000 for every new batch. Added to this, they paid hostel fees of Rs.1,10,000 per year and this amount was also hiked by Rs.10,000 each year. Merit scholarship amounts were not given to students and caution deposit were not returned. The entire college was turned into a party base of the ruling party with only its banners and flags, allowed. What kind of injustice is this? The TDP government, by encouraging such privatisation of professional education at exorbitant costs, as much as over 4 lakh rupees per student per year, is diluting higher education. These private institutions are undermining the role of universities which enjoyed a pre-eminent position. They are not serving the cause of higher education in any way by collecting such high fees. Education under the Telugu Desam party government has been completely commercialised and has been turned into a thriving business at the cost of the social cause it is meant to serve. ‘Vidyalaya’, in the true sense of the term, has lost its meaning under TDP.
I have a question for the chief minister —Arogyasri, 108 services, fee reimbursement, a host of other programs which reflect his welfare governance model have created a permanent place for my father in the hearts and minds of the people of the state across all regions. Is it not a fact that you have diluted all such welfare schemes and programmes? Is there a single welfare scheme which you have initiated for which people remember you?
