Activists of the Congress party staged demonstrations in Nellore district in protest against the alleged scrapping of welfare schemes meant to alleviate the living conditions of the members of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes communities.
Leading a series of protests in Sarvepalli Assembly constituency, former Union Minister Dr. Chinta Mohan lamented that students from weaker sections studying in higher educational institutions, including professional colleges, faced a bleak future following denial of scholarship by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government. As a result, the students from these communities were being forced to drop out of colleges, he said, seeking to remind that the facility was introduced during the erstwhile Congress regime.
The SC Finance Corporation had been starved of funds and as a result, soft loans for entrepreneurs from these communities remained elusive in the State now, he said, adding that the financial assistance scheme was introduced by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by collaborating with nationalised banks.
Dalits in Andhra Pradesh yearn for a direct benefit scheme (DBT) like Dalit Bandhu implemented in neighbouriing Telangana as their counterparts were given ₹10 lakh each by the Chandrashekar Rao government there to make them successful entrepreneurs, he added.
Leading a similar protest in Muthukur, the party’s Sarvepalli Assembly constituency in-charge P. Chandrasekar said houses for these communities remained incomplete as even the paltry budgetary allocations made by the YSRCP government had not been spent in the last four years. Even the houses constructed during the previous regimes had not been handed over to the beneficiaries for various reasons, he complained.
