The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Widows threaten protest in front of Yediyurappa's house

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Friday, Mar 09, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Widows threaten protest in front of Yediyurappa's house

Special Correspondent

They want funds earmarked in the budget towards providing them assistance

BANGALORE: A large number of poor widows, who are yet to get financial assistance under a widow assistance scheme, on Thursday threatened to launch an indefinite dharna in front of the residence of Deputy Chief Minister B.S.Yediyurappa here if he failed to earmark funds towards pending financial assistance for them in the budget.

Office-bearers of Shantaveri Gopala Gowda Samajwadi Adhyayana Kendra Trust, which is organising the poor beneficiaries of the widow assistance scheme, told a press conference in Bangalore on Thursday that 51,666 widows in the State were yet to get assistance of Rs. 10,000 each, sanctioned to them under the National Social Security Scheme since 2001.

The kendra's managing trustee Kalluru Megharaja explained that the Centre had in fact stopped release of funds to the scheme since 1997-98.

But concerned over the plight of poor widows, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had declared that the State itself would implement the scheme, and Rs. 28 crore had been earmarked in the budget for 2006-07 to dispose of 28,000 applications which had been cleared under the scheme from 1997 till 2001.

But 51,666 beneficiaries, who had been selected under the scheme since 2001, were yet to get the assistance.

Mr. Megharaja urged the Deputy Chief Minister to earmark Rs. 51.66 crore in the budget to help these widows from poor families.

Snubbed

He said that though the Chief Minister was sympathetic towards the plight of these widows, the Deputy Chief Minister had snubbed them by maintaining that he had other priorities than the widow assistance scheme. Taking exception to this, Mr. Megharaja declared that the widows would not only launch a protest against Mr. Yediyurappa, but would also take up a campaign to prevent him from taking over the chief ministership from Mr. Kumaraswamy if he failed to implement the widow assistance scheme.

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