Telangana government touts 'Kanti Velugu' to hog the national limelight

Hyderabad: With all political parties in poll mode, there seems to be a healthy competition in launching health schemes both by the Telangana government and the Union government.

The state government launched phase-II of Kanti Velugu programme in the presence of three chief ministers, Arvind Kejriwal Delhi, Bhagwant Singh Mann Punjab and Pinarai Vijayan of Keralaat Khammam recently. This was a two- pronged strategy of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. One to win over the poor and youth who have been making a beeline to these centres and two to showcase the programme at national level since TRS has now become BRS and is aiming to play important role at national level.

Modern medical facilities provided in the eye camps have helped the doctors to conduct a thorough check up of the eyes and prescribe either glasses or refer them to government hospitals for any eye related treatment including cataract surgeries. Officials said that the objective of the universal eye screening is to make the state 'Blindness free Telangana.' The Medical and Health department officials said that buffer teams and quality monitoring teams have also been formed to address the issues in the emergency times. The successful conduct of the Kanti Velugu programme was visible in every village in the state. 60 year old farm labourer Ramulamma shared her agony after she started losing eye sight due to eye ailments. She said Kanti Velugu has helped her to get their vision back.

On day one of the camp, 1.60 lakh people got eyes tested across the state and this shows the importance of the program. The testing teams have identified 70256 patients with certain eye related ailments and 37046 patients were provided reading glasses instantaneously. For the remaining 33210 patients the prescribed spectacles would be provided in due course.

A total of over 400 Gram Panchayaths spread across the state were covered in the last one week. Screening in another 981 villages is in progress.