The prestigious and popular welfare schemes of previous Congress governments, fee reimbursement, Arogyasri and free power will be done away with by the N. Chandrababu Naidu government in Andhra Pradesh.
The Telugu Desam has been a reviewer of the fee reimbursement and Arogyasri schemes which were introduced by YSR. With a financial crisis nerve-racking post the state’s bifurcation, financing such schemes will be difficult.
It seems that Mr Naidu is likely to axe the Arogyasri and fee reimbursement schemes as they have been condemned for helping others but not the poor for whom they were meant.
Furthermore, the free power scheme likely to be terminated is which was introduced to help farmers of the Telangana region who depend on bore wells for agriculture whereas Seemandhra farmers use river water.
By giving the chop these three schemes, the government can save around Rs 6,000 crore, according to a senior officer.
The Arogyasri scheme gets around Rs 4,000 crore in the budget and the fee reimbursement scheme gets Rs 3,500 crore every year. About 60 per cent of the expenditure for the two schemes used to go to Seemandhra and 40 per cent to Telangana region.
By nullifying these two schemes, the burden on the state government will come down to around Rs 4,500 crore. For the free power scheme, the government gives around Rs 4,300 crore as subsidy to the Energy department every year.