In accordance with Pogula Anjaneyulu, the sarpanch of the village who has been with the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) since its inception because the Telangana Rashtra Samithi in 2001, 480 out of 550 homes have been recognized for demolition, together with the one during which 65-year-old Nara Lakshmi lives along with her 70-year-old husband, Satyanarayana.
Among the many marked homes are some that allegedly hinder the growth of streets or lanes.
However since then, a number of individuals — the aged couple amongst them — are nonetheless ready for the promise to be fulfilled. For now, the couple, who belong to the backward Padmashali caste, have managed to have a room repaired by placing collectively some funds.
“It was a generous decision (the promise of better housing), but where are the new houses? All bogus talk,” says their neighbour, Narasimhulu Poola.
The unfulfilled promise of pucca homes isn’t the one grouse the village has with the chief minister and his occasion, the BRS. Telangana votes for its 119-member home on 30 November, and, as nightfall falls on this village days earlier than it casts its poll, a gaggle of villagers gathered for a chat record out different points — lack of primary infrastructure equivalent to correct roads, unfulfilled guarantees of presidency jobs, ration playing cards for the general public distribution system, and pension schemes.
Just a few blocks away from Nara Lakshmi’s home, Bhaskar Dubbaka, a advertising government, complains concerning the unfinished street in entrance of their home that’s “particularly dangerous for their toddlers”.
Sirisha Palugula, who’s in her mid-20s, complains about not having been given a ration card regardless of the various appeals made to authorities. “I got married a few years ago and now have small children. How can new families like us survive,” she asks.
The villagers see their issues as a microcosm of “various issues plaguing people across Telangana”, says one resident.
Political observers agree. “While there’s resentment everywhere, it’s a pity that such problems have remained unresolved in a village that the CM adopted,” says Akunuri Murali, a retired IAS officer and convenor of Jago Telangana, a community of civil society teams. “In KCR’s own constituency Gajwel too, people are furious that their legislator is never available to them.”
In accordance with Kishore Poreddy, spokesperson of Telangana Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP), Vasalamarri stands as testimony to the chief minister’s “deceptive politics”. “If KCR cannot keep the basic promises he made directly to those he ‘adopted’, one can easily imagine the plight of the rest of Telangana. It’s time the CM and his BRS party are taught an unforgettable lesson on 30 November,” he advised ThePrint.
For his half, Anjaneyulu acknowledges the villagers’ grievances as real however provides that it’s not all bleak within the village.
“The CM promised Rs 100 crore for the uplift of the village in all aspects. Rs 59 crore was sanctioned to the district authorities, including Rs 25 crore for new houses. But the house construction works are yet to begin for various reasons like procedural delays,” says Pogula, including that different infrastructure tasks are additionally underway.
Whereas releasing the occasion’s manifesto this yr, BRS chief KCR promised to extend pensions below the Aasara scheme to Rs 5,000 per 30 days from the present Rs 2,000 in a phased method. His son, BRS working president Ok.T. Rama Rao, in the meantime, has promised voters that these “previously uncovered will also be brought under the welfare ambit”. This would come with issuing new ration playing cards from January 2024.
Regardless of a few of these assurances, villagers like Guntupalli Rajamani usually are not satisfied. Rajamani, who lives on the far finish of the village, wonders what occurred to KCR’s promise of intiki oka udyogam — or the CM’s 2016 promise of 1 lakh authorities jobs for the state’s youth “in the next three years”. The CM ultimately denied making such a promise.
Her 32-year-old postgraduate son, Rajesh, is as soon as once more getting ready for presidency recruitment exams after a few of them have been cancelled following query paper leaks earlier this yr. Her second son, she says, is “a graduate employed as a driver.”
“The only favor he did for us women was sparing us from the kitchen for a day,” Guntupalli says, recalling a grand lunch the CM hosted for everybody within the village in June 2021.
ThePrint reached senior CMO officers over the phone and by way of textual content messages for touch upon the development of recent homes in Vasalamarri. This report will likely be up to date once they reply.
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Lack of govt jobs, housing — what ails Vasalamarri
The lunch that Rajamani was referring to was a grand affair held on 22 June at a 20-acre farmland, with 23 vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. Within the mega grama sabha, KCR reportedly proposed ‘Mission Bangaru (Golden) Vasalamarri’ and mentioned the entire village had develop into his household.
Nonetheless, in keeping with villagers, there has not been a lot progress since then. “Ask us what problem we don’t have,” says an aggravated Narasimhulu Poola, quoted earlier. “We are facing troubles with Dharani too.”
Dharani is the BRS authorities’s built-in land information system. Launched in October 2020 as a part of its reforms in land administration, the portal has develop into a significant bone of rivalry this election, with rivals Congress and the BJP each promising to abolish it if they arrive to energy.
A number of individuals ThePrint spoke to elsewhere in Telangana say their purposes for homes below the state authorities’s Two-Bed room (2BHK) Housing Scheme, also called the Dignity Housing Scheme, have both been rejected or are pending with the authorities.
Launched in 2015, the scheme geared toward offering reasonably priced housing to offer housing to five.72 lakh underprivileged households within the state. In accordance with sources within the CMO, the federal government has now constructed 1.43 lakh such homes. However Akunuri Murali of Jago Telangana believes the quantity is “grossly inadequate”.
“KCR has left many applicants in the lurch,” says Murali.
Sarpanch Anjaneyulu concedes that villagers have motive to be upset. “My house is also partly broken,” he says, however shortly provides that a number of growth tasks are additionally underway within the village.
“Construction of a new school building, a health centre, and anganwadi centres are underway, whereas a newly built substation has ended our low-voltage power problem,” Pogula says, including, “About Rs 30 crore is allocated for infrastructure — roads, underground drainage, drinking water, and electricity supply.”
Why Vasalamarri
Vasalamarri isn’t a part of KCR’s constituency, Gajwel, or his house turf, Siddipet district. As a substitute, it comes below the Alair meeting in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district, lies 60 km northeast of the state capital Hyderabad, and is 15 km from KCR’s farmhouse at Erravalli.
It was from this village that KCR selected to launch his new SC empowerment scheme, Dalit Bandhu, in 2021, simply forward of the bypolls in Huzurabad meeting constituency.
Below the Dalit Bandhu scheme, the state authorities promised to offer monetary help to the state’s 10 lakh Dalit households to arrange their very own companies. Among the many first beneficiaries of the scheme have been the Vasalamarri village’s 76 Dalit households.
In accordance with sarpanch Pogula, the village falls on the route that the CM takes to go to the Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple at Yadadari and different locations equivalent to Jangaon district.
“On one such tour, he was intrigued and enquired about the state of affairs here (in the village). We were called to the farmhouse one day three years back and he conveyed his decision to adopt our village,” Pogula tells ThePrint.
He hopes that the BRS will retain energy within the state.
“We expect to meet CM KCR soon to press for the speedy construction of houses,” the sarpanch says.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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