Minister Botcha holds Opposition responsible

Visakhapatnam: The poor and elderly in the state are suffering because of the attitude of TDP national president N Chandrababu Naidu and Citizen for Democracy convenor Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, alleged education minister Botcha Satyanarayana.

Speaking to the media here on Monday, the minister said they had complained to the Election Commission that if volunteers distribute pensions to the beneficiaries, it would benefit the YSRCP. He said that every month the pension distribution programme is conducted by three lakh volunteers across the state. Keeping the problems faced by the elderly in view, the YSRCP government has implemented a new system of door delivering pensions to the beneficiaries. Accordingly, the volunteers have been distributing pensions on the day one of every month, Satyanarayana informed.

Further, the minister alleged that Naidu is creating problems with the support of a section of the media which is favorable to him and his aim is to trouble the elderly.

He pointed out that the Opposition and the media favourable to them are carrying out a false propaganda that the state government has no funds to distribute pensions to the beneficiaries which is a completely baseless allegation.

“Is it right to block the distribution of pensions to 60 lakh poor people? Is it possible to complete the work of three lakh people with alternative sources?”, the education minister said.

Naidu writing a letter to the Election Commission to make an alternative arrangement for the distribution of pension is nothing but a drama, Satyanarayana opined.