Ready to spend Rs.1 lakh crore on Dalit Bandhu: CM KCR

Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao said on Saturday that the State government is ready to spend Rs 80,000 crore to Rs 1 lakh crore on the Telangana Dalit Bandhu scheme that would be implemented across the State.

He said the scheme, which will be implemented in a phased manner, would be extended to all the eligible persons but priority would be given to those who have no assets.

The Chief Minister was speaking with Dalit association leaders, intellectuals, elected representatives and activists from Huzurabad who called on him at Pragathi Bhavan to thank him for appointing Banda Srinivas as the Chairman of Telangana State Scheduled Castes Development Corporation Limited.

The scheme, which will be launched initially in Huzurabad as a pilot project, should emerge as a role model for not only Telangana but also the entire country as an exercise to eradicate social and financial discrimination of Dalits. “With commitment, we will strive to implement the scheme successfully,” he said, and advised every Dalit to work for the successful implementation of the scheme. “A KCR should be



born in every Dalit habitat after the implementation of the scheme,” he said.

The light that emerges from the successful implementation of the scheme in Huzurabad should reflect and extend all over Telangana as well as the entire country. The development of Dalits should be taken up in the same spirit as the separate Statehood movement was, he said.

The people of Telangana have just started to live life after facing various types of problems in the last 100 years under kings, jagirdars, zamindars, landlords and colonial rulers. “Telangana is now on the right path as we are trying to set right all the sectors,” the Chief Minister said, adding: “Apprehensions were raised when the Statehood movement was launched, but we achieved it. Many said that 24-hour power supply was impossible. We made it possible.”

“When projects like Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme are conceived, many said it will not happen. But we completed it,” he said. Agriculture, which was termed as waste, has turned into a festival after it became profitable.