APCC working president N. Thulasi Reddy on Saturday accused Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of trying to debilitate the panchayat raj institutions.
In a statement, he said after the Panchayat Raj Act (73rd Amendment) came into force on April 24 in 1993, the States were allowed to take steps to organise village panchayats and give them powers to function as units of self-government.
“But G.O. 2 issued by the YSRCP government on March 25 this year violates the spirit of the Act and the 73rd Amendment,” Mr. Thulasi Reddy argued.
‘Grant powers to sarpanches’
He said, according to the G.O., the staff and volunteers of the village secretariats were not accountable to the sarpanches. He said the sarpanches had not been granted cheque power so far.
Mr. Thulasi Reddy demanded withdrawal of the G.O. and grant powers to the sarpanches and the elected representatives at the village-level.
Zero interest scheme
He found fault with the Chief Minister “trying to create hype over the sunna vaddi (zero interest) loans to the women self-help groups.”
Claiming that the Congress had introduced it during 2004 elections, he said the party had promised to implement ‘pavala vaddi’ scheme to empower women.
It won the elections and the Congress governments headed by former Chief Ministers Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and K. Rosaiah had implemented the scheme from 2004-05 to 2010-11.
To further improve the scheme, former Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy changed it from ‘pavala vaddi’ to ‘sunna vaddi’ scheme, which was implemented as long as the party was in power. In 2016-17, he said, the TDP government, however, scrapped the programme, he alleged.
“While the Congress government had granted ₹5 lakh to each self-help group, the YSRCP government reduced the amount to ₹3 lakh,” he said.
The Congress leader said that spending huge money on publicity of such schemes was unwise, especially when the State was reeling under serious economic crisis, compounded by the pandemic impact. He said women should take note of the YSRCP government’s game plan.
