Hyderabad: Senior TRS leader and former minister T Harish Rao today said Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao was aware of problems of the poor and providing better pensions to them to lead better lives. The TRS government has doubled the pension of Asara pensioners and they can get the amounts in their bank accounts, he said.
At a program in Siddipet along with party leaders and officials, Harish Rao gave away pension order copies to the beneficiaries. He said KCR was committed for welfare of the poor, who are now feeling that the Chief Minister was providing monetary assistance like elder son in the family.
Harish Rao said the TRS government has kept the promise to increase Aasara pensions in the State from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,016 to normal pensioners and Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,016 to physically disabled persons. Distributing sanction letters of the pensions to the beneficiaries, he said the TRS kept its promise made during the polls. Due to election code, the double amount was delayed by six months and the beneficiaries can now get the increased amount in their bank accounts.
Soon the poor will get another benefit of two bedroom housing facility and the people should not give any amount to others. He said Kalyana Lakshmi and Shadi Mubarak schemes are helping the poor families to perform marriage of their girl children. This is one of the best welfare schemes in the country being appreciated by other States too, he claimed. Harish Rao also said Telangana was the only State in the country to spend a whopping amount of Rs 40,000 crore towards welfare schemes.
Harish Rao appealed to the people to get housing facility free of cost as the officials are preparing to do so. With the reduction of pension age limit to 57 years, about seven to eight lakh more people will also get the benefit in addition to the existing 45 lakh pensioners, he added. (NSS)
