In Telangana state, the majority population is made up of people from SC, ST, BC, and minority communities. These communities are often educationally and socially backward, which leads to high poverty rates. Before Telangana was formed, poor people in united Andhra Pradesh struggled to even eat two meals of rice a day. However, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao wanted to ensure that people in Telangana wouldn’t go hungry, so he implemented various public welfare schemes. The Telangana state government allocates Rs. 50,000 crores every year to these schemes, which is more than any other state in the country.
Thanks to these welfare schemes, minimum living security has been established for the poor. The KCR government has implemented more welfare programs than any other state in the country in just over eight years. One of the programs is the Aasara Pensions, which provide support to many groups of people, including the elderly, widows, disabled, victims of Filariais (Bodakalu), single women, toddy tappers, weavers, beedi workers, HIV patients, dialysis patients, and elderly artists in poor families. The Telangana state government believes it’s their social responsibility to provide support to those who need it.
In the past, poorer sections of society felt insecure and lacked support under united Andhra Pradesh rule. But now, the KCR government is providing supportive pensions to eligible people. Previous governments in the united state only provided pensions to certain groups and allocated much less money for pensions than the Telangana government has. Between 2004-14, the previous governments only allocated Rs. 5,558 crores for pensions in the common state. In contrast, the Telangana government has spent Rs. 58,696 Crore on these schemes.
