90% of Telangana’s population benefiting from ration cards: Harish Rao

Harish Rao said that they were giving an additional 3.10 lakh new ration cards across the State.

Siddipet: Finance Minister T Harish Rao on Wednesday said that over 90 per cent of Telangana’s population was benefitting from ration cards.

“Telangana is the only State in the country to issue ration cards on such gigantic proportions of population,” Harish Rao said, adding that 2.88 crore people were receiving ration through fair price shops across Telangana. The Minister lashed out some opposition leaders who termed the welfare schemes introduced by the State government as peanuts. He explained how much of effort and money the State government was putting in for the benefit of the citizens. “We are working for the welfare of the people and not for their votes,” he added.

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Stating that they had issued 87.41 lakh ration cards in the past, Harish Rao said that they were giving an additional 3.10 lakh new ration cards across the State taking the total number of beneficiaries to 2.88 crore. He further elaborated that the subsidised ration is costing them Rs 2,776 crore per annum.

While the past governments had put a sealing on each ration card at 20 kgs rice per card, the Minister said that they were giving 6 kgs of rice per head by lifting the earlier restrictions. As they were covering all under welfare schemes irrespective of their political association, Rao said that Telangana underwent a transformation within seven years after the new State was created. He has accused the previous governments of ignoring the development of Telangana and the welfare of its people.

Addressing the people after distributing the new ration cards to beneficiaries at Mahathi Auditorium in Gajwel, Rao said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar has become partial to farmers by introducing a slew of programmes for the benefit of farmers fraternity. The Minister has launched the distribution of 1,543 new ration cards in Gajwel Constituency today. Rao has also presented Kalyana Lakshmi/Shaadi Mubarak cheques to 452 beneficiaries on this occasion.

MP Medak Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, Collector P Venkatrami Reddy, MLC Farooq Hussain,  Forest Development Corporation Chairman Vanteru Prathap Reddy and others were present.

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