Budget points to early polls

Hyderabad: Will this be the last full budget and will the TRS government go in for early elections? The opposition parties believe so. Their presumption arises from the slew of new schemes announced by the State Government.

The new schemes announced in the Budget proposals for 2022-23 were Rs 3-lakh cash incentive to construct houses to those who build a two-bedroom house if they own a plot anywhere in the state.

This, according to the Finance Minister T Harish Rao, was based on the representations made by the people's representatives to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

Another new scheme proposed is KCR Nutrition Kit. This will be launched in nine districts -Adilabad, Komaram Bheem Asifabad, Bhadrachalam Kothagudem, Jayashankar Bhupalpally, Kamareddy, Vikarabad, Mulugu, Jogulamba Gadwal and Nagarkurnool where the problem of anaemia is acute amongst pregnant woman and lactating mothers. This Kit will have all the necessary supplementary nutrition material.

It is expected that every year around 1.25-lakh women would get benefited through this programme.

As the school and college going girls are facing some health issues, the government has decided to distribute Health and Hygiene kits to all the girls who are studying in government schools and government junior colleges from class seven upwards. The scheme is expected to benefit 7-lakh girls across the State.

For the welfare of the toddy tappers, it is proposed to start a special scheme with an outlay of Rs 100 crore. Previously, the toddy tappers used to get an ex gratia of only Rs 2 lakh in case of accidental death. The Government has now increased the same to Rs 5 lakh. The relief given to people who became permanently disabled was only Rs 50,000. This also was increased to Rs 5 lakh by the Government.

One the lines of Rythu Bhima for farmers, the Finance Minister announced starting an insurance scheme for all the handloom and powerloom workers. The sum assured of Rs 5 lakh will be provided to the kin of the deceased in the new financial year.

In view of increasing demand for the old pension system from government employees, the Telangana government also announced the extension of family pension scheme to kin of those employees who die, and are currently under the CPS (contributory pension scheme).For the benefit of building and other construction workers, the Finance Minister said it has been decided to distribute one lakh motorcycles to the beneficiaries on subsidy. Guidelines of this scheme would soon be formulated, he added.