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The Telangana Government has begun a massive exercise to survey socio-economic conditions of four crore people in the State. The Intensive Household Survey 2014 to be done on August 19 is aimed at weeding out fake beneficiaries of government welfare schemes.
The five-page enumeration pro forma takes the signatures of heads of families, authenticating the information. The survey will be completed in just one day. About 4 lakh employees will cover 86 lakh households. The government is yet to decide the date for the survey. There is nothing in the pro forma that tries to explore ‘the nativity’ question of people.
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao has said that the process should be completed in just one day to remove scope for malpractices.
“Statistics hold the key for successful implementation of Government welfare schemes and policies. If the numbers are wrong, schemes are bound to fail,” he said.
Addressing district collectors and top Revenue officials here on Friday to prepare them for the survey, he said the number of White ration cards and pink cards far outnumbered the number of households in the State.
“You make a mistake once (giving them the white card to wrong people), it adds on burden to the exchequer at different points. We need to correct this,” he said.
Fee reimbursement issue The Chief Minister has reiterated that his Government would not reimburse fee for engineering students hailing from Andhra Pradesh. “We have a right to decide on the local status of an individual. A Supreme Court Bench gave a clear judgment upholding the States' right on the issue,” he said.
The government pays about Rs 4,000 crore annually to engineering colleges on behalf of students from economically and socially backward sections. After the bifurcation, the Telangana government has said that it is not going to reimburse the fee for those hailing from Andhra Pradesh to reduce financial burden.
It reportedly is planning to set November 1, 1956 (the day the State was formed) as the cut off date to ascertain local status of an individual.
The Andhra Pradesh government is demanding the Telangana government to pay the fee for all students. On Thursday, its Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu changed its stance and agreed to bear 58 per cent. of the burden. Chandrasekhara Rao’s reiteration came a day after his counterpart’s offer.
Land to Dalits
The Telangana Government will buy land to distribute it to Dalits. The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi had promised to give three acres each to Dalits during the recent polls. It would spend Rs 1,500-Rs 2,500 crore a year for this purpose.
“We will do that in phases. Initially, we will cover 1.50 lakh families. Besides giving land, we will always dig a bore well in each plot and inputs,” he said.
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