VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has directed District Collectors to encourage joint families by extending welfare benefits to all. Expressing concern over splitting of joint families as micro families to receive welfare benefits, the Chief Minister advised the officials to distribute ration to all the members by changing policies and by treating the family as the basic unit.
He instructed officials to complete family-unit mapping before issuing new pensions, while continuing the existing beneficiaries without any changes.
Addressing the Collectors Conference on the second and concluding day at the Secretariat on Friday, the CM directed officials to prepare a welfare calendar to remind people on welfare benefits receiving dates.
The CM said the government had so far spent around Rs 1.50 lakh crore on welfare programmes, including Rs 75,000 crore on pensions alone. Welfare policies should focus on reducing economic inequalities, he said.
The CM directed SERP and MEPMA to extensively implement the ‘One Family-One Entrepreneur’ programme. He said steps were being taken to transform five lakh women into entrepreneurs. Naidu directed Collectors to take the P4 programme forward as a people’s movement.
The CM said the first day of every month had been dedicated to welfare through the ‘Pedala Sevalo’ programme. The ‘Mee Bhoomi-Mee Hakku’ programme should be conducted on the 9th of every month, he said and directed officials to and implement the ‘Sanjeevani’ digital health records initiative on the fourth Saturday.