Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy has lauded Rotarians for their service initiatives and assured them that the A.P. Government would extend all necessary help required in expanding the reach of Rotary International’s (RI) programmes - be it in education, health or sanitation.
He was addressing a large gathering of Rotarians from 15 countries after inaugurating a three-day Rotary South Asia Summit 2013 here on Friday. He took the audience through an impromptu presentation of the strides that A.P. was making in the focus areas of education, healthcare and girl child protection and empowerment of women.
“No other State in India does as much as A.P. in the areas of health care and education,” Mr. Reddy said, elaborating on the A.P. Government’s allocation for education as being the highest among all States in the form of scholarships for an estimated 25 lakh students belonging to the underprivileged sections. The Chief Minister explained the finer aspects of A.P. Government’s ‘Arogyasri’ programme that covers over 900 diseases. Sharing the dais with Mr. Reddy were RI’s President Nominee for the year 2014 Gary C.K. Huang and RI Director Shekhar Mehta who is also Summit Convenor. Delegates included about 500 from Bangladesh, 300 from Sri Lanka, 75 from Nepal and 60 from Pakistan, apart from those from countries like Bhutan, Canada, Malaysia, Maldives, Taiwan, Thailand and USA.
