The Telangana government is in talks with various banks for rolling out the ₹2-lakh farm loan waiver scheme. “The State government is committed to implementing the scheme. We will do it in a planned manner. We will honour the promise made to the farmers,” Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan says.
Besides the ‘six guarantees’ that helped the party clinch the December 2023 elections, the Congress party made of a bunch of other promises in its election manifesto. This includes the farm loan waiver scheme, which promises to waive farm loans up to ₹2 lakh. Though the party made the promise in the 2018 elections, there were no takers at that point of time.
Delivering the Republic Day speech on Friday, she said that the government signed MoUs worth ₹40,000 crore during Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s recent trip to the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos.
Taking potshots at the erstwhile Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government, the Governor said that the Telangana society had put an end to the 10-year ‘dictatorial government’ that worked against the values enshrined in the Constitution.
“The Constitution gave people enough powers to remove the rulers who run governments against the spirit of the Constitution through struggles and verdicts in the elections. The people’s mandate made it clear that arrogance and autocracy have no place in the State,” she pointed out.
The Congress government had initiated an action plan to roll out the ‘six guarantees’ made in the party’s election manifesto. “Two of the six guarantees (free bus service and enhanced health insurance cover) have already been implemented. As many as 11 crore women passengers have utilised the service,” she said.
“We will implement the remaining four guarantees by the time the government completes 100 days in office,” she said.
Stating that the government is in the process of identifying eligible beneficiaries, she said that the government received 1.25 crore applications during the special drive conducted in the first week of January 2024. “Of them, 1.05 crore people submitted applications for the remaining four guarantees, while 20 lakh people wanted some other grievances to be addressed,” she said.
“The government is preparing an action plan to address the people’s grievances by segregating them department wise,” she said.
The government has begun a process to revamp the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC), which was marred by several controversies after back-to-back cancellation of competitive examinations during the KCR regime.
She concluded her speech by quoting Tamil seer Thirukkural, who said: “Courage, generosity, wisdom, and zeal are the four essential elements of a successful government.”