Cheyutha pensions: 3.5 lakh of the 4.5 lakh new pensions go to widows and single women, Revanth Reddy says in Kodangal

Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy said on Sunday, 8 November, that 3.5 lakh of the 4.5 lakh new Cheyutha pensions sanctioned that day are going to widows and single women. He gave the figure at a meeting with members of women’s self-help groups at Hakimpet in Vikarabad district, part of his own Kodangal constituency, on a Deepavali that was also his birthday.

Panchayat Raj Minister Seethakka had announced the round on Saturday, 7 November, naming single women, widows, persons with disabilities, handloom weavers and toddy tappers among those covered, without numbers for each group. No category-wise or district-wise list has been published since. More than 40 lakh people in Telangana already draw these pensions. Field staff of the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) chose the new names from over 5.5 lakh applications made through the Cheyutha portal from August.

Letters in the districts, money from November

After the Kodangal launch, ministers, legislators and officials are to give out sanction letters in every district, and the new pensioners are to be paid from November, directly into their bank accounts, the minister’s statement said. Applicants can look up their status on SERP’s Cheyutha portal under New Sanctions Applicants Search, by entering the application ID or Aadhaar number, or by choosing the district, mandal and gram panchayat or ward. The government has said eligible people still left out will be covered in phases.

In the Mega Rythu Mela hall, Revanth Reddy told the women that banks had lent Rs 79,000 crore to their groups in his government’s 34 months, and repeated his aim of making one crore women millionaires. The free bus travel scheme for women would not be withdrawn, he said. He also asked the mothers present to promise him, on his birthday, that their daughters would go on to higher education.

Buildings opened, a road next

Earlier in the day he opened a Rs 4.79 crore government junior college and a Rs 3 crore police station at Bomraspet, a Rs 2.35 crore primary health centre and new school and college buildings at Hakimpet, a new police station and circle office in Kodangal town, and a Rs 12 crore integrated mandal office and a police station at Dudyala.

His programme for the rest of Sunday included laying the foundation for Radial Road-2, a Rs 5,060 crore road from Kothwalguda on the Outer Ring Road to National Highway 167N at Nacharam, Kosgi mandal. On Saturday he said the road from Shamshabad to Kodangal would be finished by December 2027. The three-day tour ends on Monday, 9 November, with a public meeting of farmers at Hakimpet, where officials are arranging for about 50,000 farmers from 10 districts.