After launching inflation relief camps at Jaipur district’s Mahapura village panchayat on April 24, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is making whirlwind tours to all districts in Rajasthan to ensure success of the camps, in which the citizens are being linked with as many as 10 public welfare schemes of the State government. Mr. Gehlot is likely to cover all the districts by mid-May.
The camps, being organised in all towns and villages across the State, were introduced as a novel concept to extend the benefits of schemes to the people and publicise the Congress government’s achievements. Mr. Gehlot is keen to increase the number of beneficiaries following the Congress high command’s subtle signals that this year’s Assembly election will be fought based on the welfare measures.
Two of the schemes have caught the attention of policy makers in other States, while Mr. Gehlot has urged the Centre to consider implementing them at the national level. They are the Chiranjeevi Health Insurance Scheme with a cover of Rs. 25 lakh per annum, forming part of the right to health, and the supply of LPG cylinders to poor households at the subsidised price of Rs. 500 each.
The Chief Minister has so far covered Bikaner, Sriganganagar, Hanumangarh, Churu and Sikar districts, touching small villages and hamlets and interacting with the beneficiaries during his tours. He addressed public meetings at the camp sites, highlighted his government’s achievements and targeted the Opposition BJP for its “lack of vision”.
Pradesh Congress Committee president Govind Singh Dotasra has accompanied Mr. Gehlot during all of his visits. According to the official sources, over 80.75 lakh Chief Minister’s Guarantee Cards were distributed to the beneficiaries in the camps till Thursday evening. The highest number of 14.93 lakh registrations were made in the Chiranjeevi Scheme, followed by 11.61 lakh in the scheme for free electricity to domestic consumers.
Other schemes for which the citizens have been invited to the inflation relief camps and get themselves registered are the free agricultural power scheme, Annapurna food packets scheme, additional days in MGNREGS, Indira Gandhi urban employment guarantee scheme, social security pensions, Chiranjeevi accident insurance scheme and the Kamdhenu livestock insurance scheme.
On Friday, Mr. Gehlot said at Rawatsar in Hanumangarh district that the people in the State had witnessed “good governance” during the last four-and-a-half years and no new tax was levied on them by his government. “There will be no shortage of resources to run the public welfare schemes and protect the common people against inflation,” he said.
The BJP has criticised the State government’s decision to organise the camps, saying they were being held with any eye on the Assembly polls. BJP State president C.P. Joshi said at a ‘Jan Akrosh’ rally in Banswara on Friday that the camps were only meant to showcase the crowds and the officials were registering the beneficiaries on the basis of the existing lists, without making any fresh additions.
