Setting aside the Opposition parties’ criticism, mainly against conducting the proposed intensive household survey in one day on August 19, the Telangana Government is determined to complete the gigantic exercise on the scheduled day by deploying about four lakh employees for the purpose including police personnel, if necessary.
Several Ministers and other elected representatives of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) launched an intensive awareness programme on Sunday on the proposed survey by meeting people and asking them to be available to enumerators visiting their homes on the designated day. They are also trying to allay fears being expressed in some quarters that the exercise is meant to prune the government welfare benefits.
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The ruling party leaders are explaining to the people that the survey is meant only to create a proper database so that misuse and irregularities in the welfare schemes are checked. “The survey is not aimed at denying any of the welfare benefits to the genuinely poor and needy but is targeted at plugging the leakages that are draining the exchequer in the form of ineligible persons getting the benefits or drawl of benefits on fake (non-existing) names,” Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy said in Nizamabad district on Sunday.
However, Opposition parties such as Congress, TDP and BJP are hitting out at the government alleging that it could be an exercise to deny welfare schemes to the poor. “The very idea of conducting such an extensive survey in one day is like a ‘Tuglaq’ policy. It should be spread over a week so that everybody gets an opportunity to give their details to enumerators,” TDP leader Errabelli Dayakar Rao said here.
Stating that people have fears on the survey that it is an effort to downsize or deny welfare benefits, Congress MLA T. Jeevan Reddy asked the ruling party to clear such doubts before taking up the task.
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Deputy Chief Ministers Md. Mahamood Ali and T. Rajaiah, Ministers T. Harish Rao, K.T. Rama Rao and others toured districts on Sunday specifically to spread awareness on the August 19 survey. They asked people to be at home on the scheduled day and cooperate with the enumerators prepare a foolproof database. There are over 84 lakh households in Telangana.