KTR assures women’s exclusive manifesto

BRS working president KT Rama Rao on Sunday assured to come up with a women exclusive manifesto, besides working out plans to extend loans to women entrepreneurs in manufacturing and service sectors in urban areas at much lower interest rates.

The women’s manifesto would be drafted by women and the BRS working president urged them to brainstorm on the services required like exclusive open gyms, more women universities etc. He said free shuttle services would be operated from Metro stations for the convenience of passengers, especially during nights.

The State government had established WE-Hub and four exclusive women industrial parks, including Sultanpur, Nandigama, Koheda. This apart, 10 percent of plots in industrial parks were earmarked for women in Telangana, he said while interacting with women at a programme here on Sunday.

On the safety and security front, the government was drafting a cyber crime legislation. Telangana would be the first State to come up with such a legislation wherein, the offender can be booked for outraging the modesty of an individual on social media, he said, cautioning there would be a lot of criticism.

“People would definitely say Freedom of Expression was being curtailed but it was not a licence to abuse” Rama Rao said.

There are 100, 104 and 108 toll free numbers where people can call for ambulances and fire engines. Likewise, an exclusive toll-free number was being planned for women to lodge any complaints. This would be monitored by the government and the complaints would be routed to different departments, he said.

Even after 75 years of Independence, many State governments were still talking about providing safe drinking water, which was to be addressed long back. In a span of 9.5 years, Telangana became the first State to provide safe drinking water to 10 million homes, he said, adding that Union government replicated the same under its Har Ghar Jal programme.

Prior to 2014, there used to be many stories in the media about girl childs being sold, young girls in the old city forced to marry old Arab nationals and about how women struggled to get safe



drinking water for their children in Nalgonda due to rampant fluorosis, he said.

To address these issues, the BRS government established 200 minority schools. Nearly 1.15 lakh students were pursuing education and of these 50,000 were young women. The State government spends about Rs.1.20 lakh on each student’s education and as a result, the young women were excelling in different competitive exams, including NITs, IITs and others, he said.

“When a young woman is trained, she becomes a beacon of change and hope” Rama Rao said. There was a story of Ameena from the old city, who was married to an Arab national and now there is another Ameena Mahmood in the venue, who wrote a book and presented it to the BRS working president.

With the State government focusing a lot on healthcare, the institutional deliveries have increased from 31 percent to 61 percent. Infant and maternal mortality rates had also come down substantially, he said.

Telangana’s Streenidhi was worth emulating in other States. It is a Non-Banking Financial Corporation created by the State government in association with women Self-Help Groups. Their disbursal runs into thousands of crores and the repayment was 99.99 percent, he said. The SHGs get interest free loans from the government and this was resulting in economic empowerment of women in rural areas, he said.

Kalyana Lakshmi and women university were not promised in the manifesto but the BRS government delivered them. Under the Amma vodi programme, a pregnant woman is picked up from her home for checkup and dropped back, he said.

BRS government was working with a private company, which produces vaccines for women with negative blood groups. These women have 14 percent higher chance of loss of blood and mortality rates high during pregnancy. These vaccines will be administered to adolescent women and Telangana would be the first State to come up with such an initiative, he said.

“I would like to imbibe the mental fortitude and mental strength of women as unfortunately men do not have that and tend to break easily” Rama Rao said on the qualities he likes more in women.