VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has said great changes have been brought in AP’s political system in the past four years while his government treated the Manifesto as a holy book by already implementing 98.5 per cent of the poll promises.
The YSRC government provided Rs 1,97,473 crore to the beneficiaries of various welfare schemes in a transparent manner via the direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode sans intermediaries.
Addressing the state Assembly’s Budget Session on Wednesday, the Chief Minister said AP has become a ‘role model state’ to the country through “innovative welfare and development activities,” and added that no other state has a growth rate better than the 11.2 per cent logged by AP this fiscal.
In the motion of thanks to Governor S. Abdul Nazeer's speech, the Chief Minister told the Assembly that the “revolutionary Jagan-mark of changes are evident from village to towns, and in every nook and corner of the state, in the form of village and ward secretariats, English medium schools, RBKs, village health clinics etc.
On the other hand, he said, the past was one of unfulfilled promises. The previous Telugu Desam rule had hoodwinked all sections of the people by releasing graphics and talking of bullet trains, but nothing had materialised. He would rather be realistic and walk on the ground, walk with the poor and the weaker sections by rendering social and political justice to the SCs, STs, BCs and Minorities, the Chief Minister asserted.
The Chief Minister said the number of government jobs went up by now to more than 6 lakh -- from the 4 lakh during the TD rule. As many as 1,56,000 new MSMEs were created after the YSRC came to power as against the 110000 MSMEs that existed during the TD rule. The implementation of a plethora of welfare schemes in the past four years resulted in an 11.28 per cent growth rate for the state, he said.
Reiterating that the rural landscape has undergone a tangible change, Jagan Mohan Reddy said the state stood as a role model for the country with a fine balancing between welfare and development.
“Agriculture is as important to me as industry. Petty traders are also as valuable as the IT sector techies. Pensioners are as important as the government employees. My war is with capitalists; and my objective is eradication of poverty. This is my economics and politics,” he asserted, stressing that this was what he had imbibed from his father and former chief minister late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
Describing his governance as women-centric, Jagan Mohan Reddy said AP is the state that is striving maximum for empowerment of women and uplift of the weaker sections. “YSRC is the only party that restricted politics to elections while implementing welfare schemes with transparency to cover all people irrespective of their caste, creed and religion.”
The Chief Minister said the 13 districts and 51 revenue districts during the term of the previous government have now been transformed into 26 and 76 entities respectively as part of his efforts for decentralisation of the administration and to ensure balanced development of all regions.
While there was only one surveyor for each mandal in the TD rule, as many as 10,185 surveyors are now working at village and ward secretariats, undertaking comprehensive survey of lands – happening after 100 years. Some 17 new medical colleges are under construction after the YSRC came to power as against the 11 medical colleges during the TD term, he said.
Jagan Mohan Reddy explained that YSR Village Clinics manned by community health officers were storing medicines of 105 labels and these are equipped with labs to conduct 14 types of diagnostic tests. This, he said, was one of the changes that the rural health sector witnessed after the YSRC came to power. Dilapidated government schools are being modernised in ways as would match with corporate schools having digital classrooms, he added.
