Jagananna Cuts Rs 1000 From Amma Vodi Scheme

The YCP government’s flagship programme, Amma Vodi, has been tweaked again. The state government which had announced to deposit Rs 15,000 per year into the bank accounts of students’ parents every year had cut down Rs 1,000 towards maintaining the cleanliness of toilets in the schools.

Now, another Rs 1,000 has been cut from the total on the grounds of providing infrastructure in the school and only Rs 13,000 would be deposited into the accounts.

Jagan had promised to implement Amma Vodi in a full-fledged manner on priority basis but now, even this programme, which had won accolades and praises from acclaimed personalities like Nobel prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, is being diluted on various grounds.

Not just a cut in the total benefit amount, henceforth, the programme, aimed at ensuring primary education to every child, would be implemented only for students recording 75% attendance in the schools.

The education officials have been asked to tally the attendance of the students from November 8 to December 30, 2021 and then only consider the eligibility of the students for the scheme.

Last year, the government deposited the Amma Vodi funds into the parents’ accounts in January but this time, it has been postponed to June in the name of verifying the attendance. The beneficiaries complained that this delay would deprive them of the funds for an academic year.

Further, Amma Vodi scheme was linked up with the ration cards. In the recent past, ration cards were scrapped in a large number and linking up the scheme with the cards is a ploy to reduce the number of beneficiaries, complained many parents.

The scheme was linked up with power bills too. After this, the number of beneficiaries has come down in thousands.

The High Court made it clear that after identifying a person as the beneficiary of a specific scheme, the government cannot stall its implementation for the said beneficiary in the next tranches. However, the government seems to be ignoring the directives.

It has to be seen if there would be further cut in the amount of funds being released to each beneficiary and also if the number of beneficiaries of the scheme would also be downsized in the future.