Welfare Policies Must Strengthen Joint Families, Says Naidu

Vijayawada:Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Friday directed collectors to redesign welfare delivery in a manner that encourages joint families, expressing concern that families were splitting into micro units merely to avail themselves of government benefits.

Addressing the second and concluding day of the collectors’ conference, Naidu said family should be the basic unit for welfare delivery and directed officials to explore distributing ration to all eligible members without encouraging fragmentation.

He asked them to complete family-unit mapping before sanctioning new pensions, while continuing benefits to existing beneficiaries without any changes.

The chief minister said the government had so far spent around `1.50 lakh crore on welfare programmes, including nearly Rs 75,000 crore on pensions. Welfare policies should reduce economic inequalities, improve quality of life and, more importantly, empower families to become economically self-reliant, he said.

Naidu directed officials to prepare a comprehensive welfare calendar indicating the dates on which various benefits would be delivered and create awareness among the people so that they could make better use of the schemes.

He asked SERP and MEPMA to extensively implement the One Family–One Entrepreneur programme and said the government was working to transform five lakh women into entrepreneurs. Collectors were also asked to ensure quality education for students staying in hostels.

The CM said the P4 programme should be taken forward as a people’s movement rather than being treated as another routine government exercise. The first day of every month would be dedicated to welfare activities under the Pedala Sevalo programme. Mee Bhoomi–Mee Hakku should be conducted on the ninth of every month to cleanse land records.

Similarly, he said, sanitation should receive special attention under the Swachh Andhra–Swarna Andhra programme on the third Saturday of every month, while the Sanjeevani digital health-records initiative should be implemented on the fourth Saturday to improve health management.

Naidu also called for taking the messages of positive thinking and a values-based society to the people alongside welfare initiatives.

Reviewing the speed of file clearances by ministers, secretaries, collectors and other officials, Naidu pulled up those failing to dispose of files within the prescribed time. He made online processing and disposal mandatory, directing that no manual file clearance should be permitted after one month.

He congratulated officials who disposed of files within two days or less.

The Chief Minister said regular field visits by secretaries and collectors were mandatory. Direct feedback from people was essential for improving the performance of the administration, he said.