YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, who took oath as the new chief minister of Andhra Pradesh at a grand function in Vijayawada on Thursday, made his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao pale by announcing the enhancement of old age pensions to Rs 2,250 per month.
Jagan put his first official signature on the file pertaining to enhancement of pensions for the old age people from Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,250, as KCR who was sitting on the dais watched with amusement.
Interestingly, KCR issued orders only a couple of days ago on enhancement of pensions from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,016 with effect from June 1. This promise was made by him during the assembly elections held in December, after the Congress part announced doubling of pensions.
Even Telugu Desam Party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu also announced before the assembly elections itself enhancing pensions from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 with retrospective effect from January, obviously to woo voters.
“For nearly four years and 10 months during the previous TDP government, the old age pensions were just Rs 1,000 a month. Even this amount they were not getting properly and regularly. Just two months before the elections, they increased the pensions to Rs 2,000 to garner votes,” Jagan said.
He announced that the old age pension would be paid at the rate of Rs 2,250 in the first year, Rs 2,500 in the second year, Rs 2,750 in the third year and Rs 3,000 in the fourth year.
Setting August 15 as deadline for the first step towards decentralisation of administration, Jagan said four lakh jobs would be provided by creating village volunteer jobs who will deliver the government schemes at the door step and they would be given a honorarium of Rs 5,000 each. There will be one volunteer for every 50 houses.
By October 2, Village Secretariats will be a reality as jobs would be created for 10 locals thereby employing 1.6 lakh more youth into the government fold who will ensure that all the government welfare schemes are being implemented without any glitches and they will be done looking beyond caste, religion or party lines and to drive out corruption. All applications will be cleared within 72 hours.
“The aim is to provide a corrupt-free government and see that all the welfare schemes would percolate to the intended sections without any interruption. There will be a call centre directly linked to Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) to record any incident of corruption or irregularity,” he said.
