Hyderabad: Several citizens, including a Class VII student, reached out to minister K.T. Rama Rao on social media, volunteering to donate to the Rythu Bandhu scheme that was launched on Thursday. Kendriya Vidyalaya student P. Akshitha was scheduled to donate Rs 30,000 from her piggy bank to Mr Rama Rao at Sircilla, where he was to launch the scheme. Her father, Mr P. Rajender, told this newspaper: “My daughter has seen the plight of our neighbours who are farmers. She follows the news and told me on Wednesday that she wanted to donate the money from her piggy bank. She is impressed by the development in Sircilla.”
Mr Rao shared the messages from such donors on his Twitter handle. Mr Anil Kumar Amirshetty, who runs a kirana store in Uppal, offered to donate Rs 8,000 and contacted the Chief Minister’s Office. When it did not work uot, he reached out to Mr Rama Rao on WhatsApp. Mr Amirshetty has three daughters, one of whom he has adopted. He told this newspaper, “It is difficult for me as a kirana store owner with proper credentials to get a loan. It will be even more difficult for farmers to get money in villages. So I decided to donate Rs 8,000 in two instalments.”
He sad it would cost him Rs 21 per day. “As a smoker, I spend so much on harmful things, I can certainly do this for our farmers”. An NRI from Taiwan got in touch with Mr Rao to donate to the scheme. Mr Ram Palarapu, who works in a firm that designs integrated circuits, A Solid Technology Co Ltd, said, “I’ve went through KTR sir’s tweets and realised that being an engineer, I should be responsible for our native farmers and want to be part of this programme”.
Since the procedure to collect donations has not been set up, the minister directed officials to co-ordinate with the Chief Minister’s Office. Mr Dileep Konatham, director of Digital Media, said, “We did not anticipate that people would like to donate to the scheme. We will be co-ordinating with the CMO and set the procedure which might take couple of days”.
