The Andhra Pradesh government has distributed Rs 370 crore as interest-free loans among 3.75 lakh small business owners and street vendors across the state. Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy launched the second phase of the Jagananna Thodu scheme from the Tadepalli Camp office on Tuesday.

The Andhra Pradesh government had introduced the Jagananna Thodu scheme to provide interest-free loans of Rs 10,000 each to street and small vendors in the state.

These vendors who typically require daily working capital in the range of Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 are known to takes loans from moneylenders at exorbitant rates ranging from 3 to 10 per cent per day.

Speaking on the occasion, the CM said, “These small vendors most of the time don’t receive financial aid from banks because of the volatility of the market they represent, even if they do manage to secure a loan from other sources they pay exorbitant rates of interest. During my 3,648 km ‘padayatra’ I saw the circumstances these vendors battle with on a daily basis, I’m grateful for this opportunity to change that with this scheme.”

To improve the incomes of such small businessmen and street vendors, including traditional artisans, the state government decided to provide interest free loans worth Rs 10,000 under the Jagananna Thodu scheme. The main objective of the scheme is to free vendors from paying heavy interest on loans taken from private parties and falling into debt.

As per the scheme, the banks provide loans to all eligible members while the government bears the interest costs by reimbursing the interest amount to beneficiaries.

Phase-1 of the scheme was launched in November last year. The scheme is split into two phases, a cumulative of Rs 905 crore has been transferred into the accounts of 9.05 lakh small businessmen and street vendors in both phases.

Under the first phase Rs 535 crore was disbursed by the banks to 5.35 lakh beneficiaries. The interest reimbursement commitment of the Andhra Pradesh government is Rs 29.42 crore for Phase-1 and Rs 20.35 crore for Phase-2 per annum, resulting in a total of Rs 49.77 crores interest incurred and reimbursed.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has expressed happiness over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to provide free Covid vaccines to all aged above 18 years.

On Monday, in his address to the nation, the Prime Minister announced that the Centre is taking responsibility of supplying Covid vaccines to all the states, for administering them free of cost to all those who are 18-years-old and above.

Late Monday night, Reddy took to Twitter to welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement. “Vaccination is the only weapon in this battle against Covid-19. Sincere thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for clearing this uncertainty and making vaccination a national agenda of utmost priority. #FreeVaccineForAll,” Reddy tweeted.

Reaching out to his counterparts across the country, the Andhra Pradesh chief minister had on Thursday called for collectively urging the central government “to take charge and responsibility” for the vaccination drive, as was being done earlier.

In a letter addressed to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday, Reddy pointed out that the global tender floated by Andhra Pradesh government, has not received bids. He noted that several other state governments have reported similar experiences.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s proposed trip to New Delhi on Monday to meet union ministers has been postponed.

Jagan was supposed to leave for Delhi on Monday to meet union home minister Amit Shah, jal shakti minister Shekhawat and few other union ministers.

Accordingly, AP Bhavan officials in New Delhi sought appointment of Amit Shah and few other union ministers.

But union ministers reportedly denied appointment to meet Jagan on Monday citing ‘busy schedule’. They learnt to have told AP officials that they can give appointment for Thursday or Friday.

With this, Jagan reportedly postponed his Delhi trip to Thursday.

Though AP officials claimed that Jagan wants to meet Amit Shah and Shekhawat to seek funds for Polavaram project and resolution of long pending state-bifurcation related issues, it fuelled speculations as meeting comes at a time when a case pertaining to cancellation of bail to YS Jagan is going on in the CBI court, which was filed by YSRCP rebel MP Raghurama Krishna Raju.

The CBI last week filed a counter in the CBI Court leaving the decision to the court to take a decision on whether to cancel or continue the bail to Jagan.

This apart, RRR has lodged several complaints with the Centre on custodial torture by APCID officials last month. Jagan wants to clarify Amit Shah on all these issues.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy on Thursday launched the first phase of “YSR Jagananna Colonies” scheme through virtual mode from his camp office in Tadepalli.

The scheme is aimed to construct 28.31 lakh houses for poor by June 2023 in two phases at a cost of Rs 50,994 crore.

In the first phase, Rs 28,084 crore will be spent and houses will be constructed by June 2022. Jagan on Thursday launched construction of 11.26 lakh houses. This apart, 4.33 lakh houses were sactioned for those who own plots.

In the second phase, Rs 22,860 crore will be spent to construct remaining houses by June 2023.

Jagan announced that his government will fulfill the ‘own house dream’ of every poor in Andhra Pradesh.

He said the government will spend Rs 4,128 crore to provide tap water to every house in these colonies. Besides Rs 22,587 crore will be spent to provide underground drainage system and CC roads.

Each house will have a built up area of 340 sq.ft and will be given two fans, two tube lights, four bulbs and one Sintex tank.

More than 85 per cent of the households in Andhra Pradesh were benefited by the schemes implemented by the YSR Congress Party government during the last two years, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy said on Sunday.

He said out of 1,64, 68,591 households, 1,41,52,386 households were benefited by one of the schemes of the government, while Rs 95,528 crore has been directly given to the people through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes and another Rs 37,197 crore indirectly through other various schemes like YSR Arogyasri, Jagananna Thodu, Gorumudha, and YSR Sampoorna Poshana etc, totalling to 1.31 lakh crore.

He said that this 1.3 lakh crore has been spent without any scope for corruption with transparency and every scheme has been delivered at the door step of the beneficiaries.

On the occasion of completion of his two years, Jagan Mohan Reddy released a letter and a document highlighting the poll promises fulfilled.

He said he has completed two years in office by the grace of God and people’s support and added that his two years term was satisfactory.

Jagan Mohan Reddy said all these schemes were implemented with the help of every village/ward volunteer, every employee of village/ward secretariats and government employees including district collectors.

He said two documents will be shared to every house through volunteers — the letter written to the women in a family which will have details of schemes benefitting the family and the other containing the details of the election manifesto promises that were fulfilled in the last two years of governance. He said he has considered election manifesto as the Bible, Quran and Gita and worked to fulfill every promise made in it.

The Chief Minister said he was proud to say that 94.5 percent of the election manifesto promises were fulfilled and it will be shared to every household as a document. He said women were the beneficiaries of 66 percent of the welfare schemes and all these details will be shared to every household through volunteers. Thanking everyone for their support during the last two years, he said he prayed to the god to give strength to fulfill all the dreams in the coming three years.

Ministers Botsa Satyanarayana, Balineni Srinivasa Reddy, Mekathoti Sucharitha, Dharmana Krishnadas, Amjad Basha, Alla Krishna Srinivas, Shankar Narayana, the Government Advisor (Public Affairs), MLAs Jogi Ramesh, Vidadala Rajini, Women Commission Chairperson Vasireddy Padma and other officials were present on the occasion.