ANDHRA CM LAUNCHES NTR BHAROSA PENSION

The Andhra Pradesh government led by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday began implementing the first of its pre-election promises by launching the NTR Bharosa pension scheme, aimed at distributing enhanced amounts of pensions among various sections of people.

Accompanied by his son and state IT minister Nara Lokesh, Naidu kickstarted the scheme at Penumaka village of Tadepalli block in Amaravati at 6am.

Deputy chief minister Pawan Kalyan also took part in the pension distribution programme at Gollaprolu village in his Pithapuram constituency. Similarly, all cabinet members and MLAs participated in the programme in their respective constituencies.

Enhancement of pension amount was part of Naidu’s pre-election promises and was approved by the state cabinet on June 24. According to an official statement, the pension for old-aged people, widows, weavers, toddy tappers, fishermen, single women, traditional cobblers, transgenders and artistes has been increased from ₹3,000 to ₹4,000 per month.

For disabled and multi-deformity leprosy patients, the pension has been increased from ₹3,000 to ₹6,000 per month. For fully disabled people confined to beds or wheelchairs and those with severe muscular dystrophy, the pension amount has gone up three-fold from ₹5,000 to ₹15,000. And for people suffering from chronic diseases like kidney diseases and thalassemia, the pension has been enhanced from ₹5,000 to ₹10,000.

At Penumaka, Naidu first visited the hut of Islavath Sai and handed her cash of ₹4,000 towards monthly widow pension, besides old-age pension of ₹4,000 to her father Banavath Pamula Nayak and mother Banavath Sitha. All of them are daily-wage earners.

In all, a total of ₹4,408 crore was distributed as pensions among 6.531 million beneficiaries of 28 different categories at their doorstep.

The government had roped in 120,097 village and ward secretariat employees to distribute pensions to the beneficiaries.

Addressing the crowd at Praja Vedika at the Masjid Centre in Penumaka, the CM said the distribution of enhanced pensions was the first step towards improving the living standards of the people. He said he had taken inspiration from TDP founder and former chief minister NT Rama Rao, who always treated society as the place of worship and people as real gods.

“The previous government and the officers have said that distribution of pension through secretariat staff members is not possible. But we made it possible now. On Monday, the pension is being distributed through 125,000 secretariat employees. I also directed them to take the assistance of the volunteers wherever necessary,” he added.

Naidu said the immediate task before him was to control the spiralling prices of essential commodities, besides fulfilling the other promises. “We will soon begin the exercise to fill the vacant posts of teachers. Anna canteens too will be revived soon and people can have their food at just ₹5,” Naidu said.

The CM said that training would be imparted to the youth to sharpen their skills and to provide better employment opportunities to them. “The more strength the government gets, the more benefits that can be distributed to the people,” he said.

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2024-07-02T02:32:30Z dg43tfdfdgfd