KCR announces ₹30 crore for scribes

Launches ‘Janahitham’, an initiative to strengthen rural economy

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday launched an interactive programme for organised groups called ‘Janahitham’ within his camp office here and announced budgetary allocation of ₹30 crore for the welfare of journalists, a section which was the first to be chosen for the programme.

The programme was launched to coincide with the 63rd birthday celebrations of Mr. Rao at the camp office which was thrown open to public for the first time after its construction in the recent months. He distributed cheques worth ₹ 1 lakh to the families of 69 journalists who died after the formation of Telangana State.

Corpus fund

Mr. Rao recalled that ₹20 crore was already allocated to journalists in the last two years and an additional ₹30 crore would be sanctioned in the coming budget. He responded to a plea of Press Academy Chairman Allam Narayana who expressed a desire to scale up the corpus for journalists upto ₹100 crore.

Elaborating on the goal of Janahitham, he said it was aimed at strengthening the rural economy that was rich but went unmapped in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. The fishermen, shepherd and cowherd communities would be targeted by the government for special assistance. About 82 lakh sheep will be supplied to shepherds and, on multiplication, their population would go up to four crore which would be worth about ₹20,000 crore. Mr. Rao added that the TRS government functioned with a human angle in a bid to wipe out people’s distress. The government was heading towards an economic growth of 21% which would help achieve its target of alleviating poverty.

Welfare measures

On welfare measures for journalists, he said the government would construct double bedroom houses and release a monthly pension of ₹3,000 for families whose breadwinners are no more. He also promised ₹3 lakh for the marriage of brides in these families.

He called for soundness in journalism as it was a weapon to cleanse the society of ills. He noted that there were 20,000 journalists in Telangana at all levels. Mr. Allam Narayana narrated the assistance extended to journalists from ₹20 crore already released.