A Telangana government scheme to gift sarees to 1.5 lakh women below the poverty line for the local Bathukamma festival backfired on Monday, as the women complained about the quality of the clothes, NDTV reported.
As leaders of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti started distributing the sarees, the women in some areas burnt those on road, reported the Hindustan Times. In other parts, women waiting in long queues were seen pulling at each other’s hair. Police personnel had to intervene to stop the fights, according to NDTV.
“We were thoroughly disappointed over the quality of the polyester sarees, which does not cost even Rs 50-Rs 60 each,” a woman told the Hindustan Times. “It is not worth even for cleaning floors. KCR should not have taken up the scheme at all, rather than insulting us with the poor quality of sarees.”
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao wanted to please both weavers by giving them more work and the women of the state when he announced the scheme during his Independence Day speech. The government had ordered sarees worth Rs 222 crore, according to the Hindustan Times. But only half the sarees were sourced from the state’s power looms while the remaining came from Surat in Gujarat, reported NDTV.
The government accused the Opposition of playing a role in the controversy. “The scheme was introduced with a noble objective. Let us not politicise it for petty gains,” the Hindustan Times quoted state IT and Textiles Minister KT Rama Rao as saying.
However, Opposition leaders claimed the scheme was a scam from the very beginning. “Each saree is supposed to cost around Rs 200 as per the government announcement, but what was distributed to them was a saree worth not even Rs 50,” Telugu Desam Party legislator A Revanth Reddy told the Hindustan Times.
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