HYDERABAD: For the landmark welfare scheme Dalit Bandhu, the State government has released Rs 7.6 crore for its implementation in Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri district on Thursday for providing Rs 10 lakh each to 76 SC families in Vasalamarri village in Turkapally mandal, which Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has adopted. With the launch of the scheme, the State government is preparing to allocate around Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore every year for Dalit Bandhu in the State Budget from 2022-23. This means that at least 10 per cent of the State’s expenditure will go to Dalit Bandhu from next year.
With several schemes already on hand, the total expenditure on welfare schemes, subsidies, interest payments and salary bill of the State government employees put together is expected to cross Rs 1 lakh crore in the forthcoming Budget.
Though the State has started with a small surplus in its financial resources, the heavy commitment taken up by the government to meet the aspirations of the people has in fact put the State in financial stress again, said the first Pay Revision Commission (PRC) report. The expenditure on subsidies, schemes and interest payments by the State government was hiked from Rs 15,750 crore in 2014-15 to around Rs 70,000 crore this year.
Now, the only option before the State is to mop additional resources through the sale of government lands, which has been successfully launched recently. The government is also hopeful that the recent increase in land values and stamps and registration fee too would help in mobilising additional financial resources.
KCR hailed as Abhinava Ambedkar
A day after Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao launched Dalit Bandhu, several TRS leaders including MLAs Gongidi Sunitha, Guvvala Balaraju and others termed KCR as “Abhinava Ambedkar.”
Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, they said that all political parties used SCs for their vote bank politics but KCR was the only one who decided to uplift them. They also said that Rao achieved a separate Telangana by taking inspiration from BR Ambedkar.