Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday reiterated his commitment to empowering 89.60 lakh DWCRA groups, which he described as the largest army fighting poverty and gaining economic empowerment.
In order to economically empower the DWCRA women, they would be made business correspondents to do mobile banking on a commission basis by transacting business of rural customers with banks, Mr. Naidu said. He assured to evolve a comprehensive policy on DWCRA groups shortly.
Addressing the DWCRA women and Velugu workers at a public meeting at the outdoor stadium in Kurnool, Mr. Naidu promised to give LPG connections for cent per cent households by June 2017.
The Deepam scheme launched by him in the past was virtually shelved during the 10-year rule of the Congress government, he remarked.
The DWCRA women would be paid to do geo-tagging, geo-fencing, taking photographs of construction of school buildings, farm ponds, toilets etc. and uploading them to the government, he said. A DWCRA group had bagged Rs. 1 crore contract for supplying jute bags to Srisailam temple, he said. He gave away a cheque for Rs. 4.50 crore to DWCRA groups.
The Chief Minister said the 1,000-MW solar plant coming up near Sakunala with an outlay of Rs. 1,500 crore was the largest in the country. Kurnool district got investments to the tune of Rs. 14,000 crore to generate 15,000 jobs and further investment of Rs. 8,420 crore was in the pipeline, he said.
An airport and industrial township would be built at Orvakal and a cement hub would be developed at Kolimigundla, he said.
Andhra Pradesh was No. 1 in power generation and would stand No. 1 in all spheres in due course, he said. Post-bifurcation, AP, spread over 1.60 lakh sq. km. was bigger than South Korea, which spanned one lakh sq. km., but income here was around Rs. 2,000 compared to $ 30,000 in that nation, he said.
