HYDERABAD: Providing farmers fertilizers free of cost, unemployment allowance, enhancement of Aasara pensions and Kalyana Lakshmi, Shaadi Mubarak amount, etc and many other schemes are being examined by BRS brass to be incorporated in the party’s poll manifesto for the upcoming assembly elections. Party sources said this time, apart from farmers, the focus will be on youth and women.
After Telangana Congress has come out with six guarantees at their recent Tukkuguda public meeting, BRS has taken up a rigorous exercise to fine tune its poll manifesto. BRS national president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had announced that he would release the poll manifesto at the party public meeting to be held at Warangal on October 16 .
Sources in the party said the party’s manifesto for the assembly elections would be a combination of new schemes or assurances along with the continuation of the existing ones with more benefits.
Though there is no formal manifesto committee like previous elections, the CM reportedly asked senior leaders, including S Madhusudhana Chary, to work on the manifesto by studying promises made by parties such as DMK in Tamil Nadu.
BRS sources said the CM is expected to announce free fertilizers (urea, DAP and NPK) for farmers for two agriculture seasons on the lines of Rythu Bandhu. Loan waiver up to 1 lakh on agriculture loans would be announced this time.
“In fact, KCR hinted openly about free fertilizers scheme a few years ago, but he chose to save it for the assembly elections later this year. Similarly, the CM is also planning to increase all types of Aasara pension amounts by 1,000. Recently, the government had increased pension of disabled persons to 4,016 from the existing 3,016 a month,” a senior BRS leader said.
Though BRS has been implementing dozens of new schemes, which were not promised in the run up to the 2014 and 2018 elections, one of the major promises that was not implemented was unemployment allowance. The party is in a dilemma whether to announce it or not.
“On one hand, the state government has taken up a massive recruitment drive, while on the other, it does not want to get a name of ‘unkept promise’ of the government. The CM is expected to take a call on this after getting a clarity on the number of unemployed youth,” another leader said.
Party is examining the proposal of offering free travel for women aboard RTC buses on lines of Karnataka and distribution of bicycles and free sanitary napkins to school and college-going girl students. Recently, the Telangana government had adopted ‘Mukhyamantri Alpahara’ (CM breakfast) scheme to school students on the lines of a similar programme in Tamil Nadu. The scheme started implementing the scheme from September 24.