Despite the delay in submitting application for ex gratia and employment by the bereaved family of Kashagoni Saya Goud (20), who committed suicide when the Telangana movement was at its peak, the State government is going out of its way to help the family.
Out of ignorance, no family member of Saya Goud had come forward to claim job or the ex gratia till recently. Only on November 7 did Prasanna Lakshmi, younger sister of Saya Goud, presented herself at the Prajavani and submitted an application. The following day, Collector Yogitha Rana forwarded the letter to the Commissioner of Police Kartikeya and asked him to submit a report on the death of Saya Goud.
The Commissioner submitted the report on December 10, draft was made ready on December 20, and on January 1 this year the Collector sent the application to the Principal Secretary, Revenue, with a recommendation for employment to one family member and ex gratia of Rs.10 lakh.
The Commissioner in his report confirmed that it was a clear case of suicide committed for the cause of statehood for Telangana.
On March 10, 2011 — the day when the Million March was held on Tank Bund in Hyderabad — Saya Goud, while watching television at his home at Nagaram, doused himself with kerosene and set himself ablaze fearing that separate state would not materialise, said the Commissioner in his report. He died while undergoing treatment at the Government General Hospital on March 13.
Except in the case of Saya Goud, the State government had provided an ex gratia of Rs.10 lakh and job to all 50 martyr families in the erstwhile Nizamabad district.
